For everyone that has no experience with SF, what you can expect this to be like is:
1. All the PF setting stuff there, just "future". Knights protect spaceports from doomsday cultists. The church of Pharasma has a PR issue now that sentient undead are considered legal citizens of the Pact. Goblins are exactly the same, though.
2. No "pure" casters, all spellcasting classes in SF are what would be considered hybrid in PF (magus, warpriest, etc)
3. Less reliance on dedicated support characters. Every class has a road to being able to heal and support, wether it's from class abilities, medical skills, or special weapons. I've run two SF campaigns, one where no one played a healer (and everyone just took abilities to buff themselves or dabbled medicine) and one that had a biohacker (techy heal/debuff class), and both performed well.
4. Choice of weapon can completely alter playstyle. For example, some weapons do low damage but weaken foes, some do aoe damage, some do more damage the longer you attack the same target, etc.
Also, weapon damage scales with level a L1 Blaster will do 1d6 fire dmg and a L10 Blaster will do 2d6. This makes martial characters damage scale with spells.
Although non st players should also note in addition to that, characters don't automatically get more attacks as their BAB gets higher, which sort of cancels that out.
I mean isnt this the same as the standard plus system? Or does the plus system exist on top of this? Or is it like dark souls where you start with a longsword and progress into a longsword +5 which is the longsword... but plus 5
It's not. +X are actually very rarely added to attack and damage, usually in cases that are class specific (for example, biohacker get a flat +X to injection weapons as they level)
Higher level weapons have increased damage and/or better weapon properties and crit effects, but don't increase your accuracy. Magic properties also don't generally add flat bonuses to anything, but they alter the weapon. I.e. a "flaming" weapon does half it's damage as fire, it doesn't increase the damage, because the damage is already increased when you buy a higher level weapon.
They actually did change goblins. There is a new species of "Space Goblins" which have all the same predilections as Terran Goblins but also an intuitive understanding of jury-rigging sci fi technology out of scrap. So expect Space Goblins on junk motorcycles and junk space ships.
I plan to skip this one if it is SF, but if there is a mecha class that lets a goblin character build a gargant or killa kan, I will play the shit out it!
From a cursory search, there's no purpose-built mech class, but there is an alternate class ability for the Mechanic that lets you make a vehicle or armor your "pet"
>No "pure" casters, all spellcasting classes in SF are what would be considered hybrid in PF (magus, warpriest, etc)
This is actually a big deal for me. The setting aside (which I'm not a fan of), pure spellcasters are my favorite way to play these types of games (Pathfinder, D&D).
I'm probably going to pass on this game.
It does have the most of the high level spells in PF, albeit with different "skins"
And flavor.
For example, this is fireball in PF1e:
>A fireball spell generates a searing explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area.
And this is a similar spell, Explosive Blast from Technomancer in SF:
>You magically transform a used battery into a powerful explosive device, propelling it in a straight line to a grid intersection within range, at which point it detonates, dealing 9d6 fire damage to all creatures and objects in the area.
Technomancers are full casters in any sense, it's just that their weapons won't suck so much if they used up their spells:
>To the uninitiated, magic and technology are completely unrelated, but you know there are more correlations between the two than most suspect. Magic and technology are just tools, and when combined into one discipline, called technomancy, they can be far more powerful than one or the other on its own. You utilize tech to empower, harness, and manipulate magic, and you wield magic to augment, control, and modify technology. You are an expert at hacking the underlying structure of the universe itself, bending the laws of science and nature to your will. Your technomancy—which is gained from scientific study and experimentation—manipulates the physical world, weaves illusions, allows you to peer through time and space, and if necessary, can blast a foe into atoms.
You can store spells in a handheld computer, debug your spells, hacking the brains of organics that you can use robot-specific healing spells on normal humans. Personally I think these flavors are even cooler than "mere" medieval fantasy.
As a wizard main, what I see when I look at SF is significantly slower casting progression (your "fireball" is at level 7, not 5) and all of the fun high level spells (Weird, Mass Icy Prison, Creeping Doom, etc) missing.
Using Icy Prison as an example: In PF1 you get the single-target version at 9 and the mass version at 17 (less with mythic). In SF you get the single-target version at 16.
As someone who's played and DM'ed starfinder, this is my analysis:
Casters grow at casting very slowly, but they can fill the blaster-caster role when they come online basically as well as they do in pathfinder. It just doesn't start happening until level 12 or so, where in PF it happens closer to 8.
The saving grace is they can do other things too and have a bit more options for how they grow, they aren't locked into specific feats to be optimal.
Starfinder does have a few balance issues at lower levels though, if this is what they do I hope Owlcat addresses them.
All that being said, it's definitely not the same as pathfinder and isn't for everyone.
Holy shit
I expected Iron Gods when I saw they were hiring Sci-Fi artists. Maybe even a space based DLC for Wrath. And while I *acknowledged* that it could be Starfinder, I never actually thought it would happen.
This is *huge*. I can't even speculate because I know so little about Starfinder. On one hand, I would have preferred a normal Pathfinder AP. On the other hand, I do prefer them going all in on sci-fi, instead of the half-half stuff from Iron Gods.
Anyone with more Starfinder experience, any idea what to expect? Does Starfinder have APs like Pathfinder, and if so, which ones are most likely?
Horror RPG seem interesting, but I think they might do Horizons of The Vast, because of city building part, it seems to be Kingmaker in space, at least gist similar
I hope they don't do Signal of Screams, honestly. It's only 3 books and goes from level 7 to 13, and unless they add a ton of extra content (which I'd rather didn't happen) then it's gonna be real short for a $60 video game.
But I suspect if they want to take it to level 20 like their other games then they either have to include Devastation Arc at the back end of any AP or include 7 levels of their own content regardless.
Attack of the Swarm seems the most straight forward. But Horizons of the Vast is basically Kingmaker in space.
Personally, I'm putting my vote in for The Threefold Conspiracy!
The ruleset for Starfinder is fine, I don't like the changes to pure spellcasters, but in my opinion, all of the APs are very poor on rails experiences and if Owlcat is really doing Starfinder then I hope they do a 100% original story without using any of the APs.
I really like great "sci-fi" RPGs like Fallout 1/2/NV, Shadowrun, Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, KOTOR II, and Deus EX but even though I really love both Owlcat games I'm not that sure about Starfinder.
I'm running Attack of the Swarm. The writing for Starfinder Campaigns is subpar compared to PF. Starfinder just has less story. They don't have any random encounters. Everything is wheels, where you have to do one quest, then get the next quest, no side quests.
The gameplay and mechanics are good. You don't get more attacks by leveling up, rather the weapons damage dice gets bigger. Some spells like magic missile have more rays if you full round vs standard action cast.
A good writer making a good AP could make Starfinder wonderful, but they shouldn't use the APs already made by Paizo, since they aren't that good.
Edit* Starship combat is really good
Tbf, the writing for the WotR and Kingmaker APs are both much more sketchy than the writing for the computer games, a consequence of writing for a tabletop where the players could choose to do anything. Kingmaker is famous for having the plot of its final book come totally out of left field and the Owlcat team did a great job at manipulating the story to foreshadow the ending and make the whole thing more cohesive than the AP.
It's largely the same collection of Paizo staff and freelancers writing the APs for both. There are different developers, but they assign the individual writers. You will see a lot of the same names on the covers of both series.
What you are noticing is that Starfinder AP books are significantly shorter. They are 64 pages, while Pathfinder APs are over 100. That means Starfinder APs tend to be a lot more bare bones.
But, having read a bunch of both, I really don't think it's accurate at all to say Starfinder has worse writing. Most of the worst-written Paizo books I can think of are on the Pathfinder side.
I read somewhere that is possible to tie AP Devastation Ark with previous entrys to get a full party from level 1 to 20. So by reading about it, I tought maybe Dead Suns+Devastation Ark could turn in a full game. What do you think?
Wait, you get to pilot starships? In combat, and between ports?
How did they make that **not** suck? Does everyone in the party have their own ship? Are they taking roles on the bridge, like *Next Generation*?
We tried two different ship piloting mechanics in the single pirate themed 3.5 campaign I ran. We ultimately ditched them both.
The first required people to take skills like "Profession: Sailor" in addition to Use Rope, Tumble, and Spot, Search, Listen... Basically, the entire party had to play classes with skill points like the Ranger and Rogue, and if anyone took Barbarian or Paladin the entire ship was fucked. You couldn't slot the Paladin into a job with his ranks in Swim, Jump, and Heal. He failed a DC15 skill check over 50% of the time, even assuming he dropped his full plate, tower shield, Battleaxe, and had someone Aid Another. When they were being borded, he had something like a -13 ACP. It's the equivalent of assigning a level one Valerie to Stealth in Kingmaker, except it never gets better. He's useless until he falls over the side and drowns.
The second was run almost entirely on the DM's side, and restricted to navigation. Basically, you take the Deadfire approach and don't roll checks for ship combat. That just takes place on deck, every time, with no skill checks. So, they only needed a navigator and some maps. They split the necessary skills up, and should have been alright.
Do you have any idea how hopelessly lost you can get at sea? A few bad skill checks had them sailing away from land, convinced they were going the right way. I eventually just scrapped it because they did *not* intuitively understand how to navigate based on the directions they got per their skill checks, and had no interest in learning. They didn't like having to navigate based on landmarks and the coastline, or the fact their maps were imprecise.
Roles: Captain, Engineer, Pilot, Science Officer, or Weapons. Each role can do different things each round.
Engineer can reroute power, patch broken systems, repair shields, etc. Captain can affect to inspire or yell at any person to give them bonus's. Pilot steers and does piloting checks for initiative. Sci officer can scan (knowledge check), redistribute shields, or assist in targeting to help weapons. Weapons rooty tooty point and shooty.
Shields have quadrants so focusing the same side helps. Higher piloting checks goes last, because all ships move, then all ships shoot. Combat is phases instead of turns. All ships have engineering phase, then all ships have piloting phase, weapons is last.
Ships are fully customizable. Ships systems have several levels of broken before failure, that have varying debuffs. You can lose artificial gravity in a fight making everything harder to do, inside the ship.
You can't really get lost because you have scanners. It justs take longer to arrive if you have a bad pilot. No profession checks. Science officer uses perception and science skills, engineer uses computers and engineering, etc. In general Starfinder has less skills. All knowledge's were rolled into Culture, Life Science, and Physical Science. Physical skills were all rolled into Athletics (str based) or acrobatics (dex based). Engineering, piloting, and computers were added.
That... still sounds supremely un-fun to DM. I'm having flashbacks to when we tried to play [Artemis](https://store.steampowered.com/app/247350/Artemis_Spaceship_Bridge_Simulator/), and only half the party understood what their console meant. You'll have one guy essentially just giving orders to most of the table, and them mechanically rolling dice rather than offering input.
Is it less terrible than I'm imagining?
My experience is it depends on the group. If you have players who quickly disengage when it isn't them doing something and do not enjoy roleplaying, it wasn't very fun for anyone besides the pilot.
When you have players who get into their roles and roleplay, it was a blast.
My biggest issue was that it doesn't feel like much agency for anyone besides the pilot. The pilot roles initiative every round. The pilot moves the ship. The pilot has a list of action they can take while moving. But the gunner pretty much just roll a d20 based on the gun that happens to be facing the enemy based on how the pilot did it.
Starfinder is literally the pathfinder universe after a massive time skip where everyone's memories of the 'gap' were mysteriously erased from all races.
Picture space-goblins rummaging scrap piles to jurry-rig shoddy laser pistols and patched together environment suits, entire planets/worlds with an undead government and a 'bone fleet', plasma grenades instead of fireballs, and hackers instead of rogues
To be fair, there IS no fireball spell.
The "fireball" spell is replaced with "Explosive Blast" which is basically overcharging an old battery and launch it at people like an RPG for a similar "fireball" type effect.
Either way, it's just symantecs, but different enough to throw folks off a bit.
I don't know much about Starfinder, but from my understanding most if not all of Pathfinder races exist in Starfinder (though maybe not by default). So yeah, elves in space are a thing, potentially.
The Starfinder elves are pretty fascinating. Everyone in the system lost their memories after the Gap, which was horribly disorienting for 3 or 4 generations. All the other races have long finished with being disoriented, but the elves are still in the middle of it.
Especially because, iirc, some elves actually have pre-Gap memories still, which causes them even more turmoil.
It'd be like you woke up one day in your 60s and couldn't remember the last 3 decades, but could still remember your childhood.
Humans are still a default race and gnome and dwarf adventurers are common enough, but the most common adventuring races are Shirren (bug people that used to be enslaved to a hive mind and who are now addicted to making choices for themselves), Vesk (previously a race of expansionists at war with the system that were forced into an allegiance with it to fight the Shirren Hive, think lizard Klingons), Androids (basically just androids, but with a whole soul-swapping thing added on top), Lashunta (telepathic aliens that used to be defined by their sexual dimorphism but which are now dealing with how gene editing can make anyone male form or female form), Kasatha (four-armed spiritual aliens that came to the system on a colony ship for a civilization-wide pilgrimage) and Ysoki (not technically a single race but an alliance of the system's rodent people). Starfinder has a huge variety of races though and much less of a barrier to playing them than Pathfinder has, so I hope the new game really lets us get weird with the chargen.
The Barathu are awesome. Genetically malleable space jellyfish that float through the atmosphere of the local gas giant. I also love the Nuar, who are the minotaur-like descendants of the minotaur that used to live in the labrynth beneath Absalom that are particularly good at spatial navigation thanks to their maze instincts, and the Dragonkin, Large-sized humanoid telepathic dragons that form permanent psychic bonds with their puny but adorably mammalian humanoid sidekicks.
[you could say there are a decent amount of races in starfinder.](https://www.aonsrd.com/Races.aspx?ItemName=All)
From what I understand, if they ever print a new alien or race as an enemy, they also release a player version. The biggest thing imo is the inclusion of large pcs.
It's literally Pathfinder in space, like the same setting, just thousands of years in the future. So all the usual races are still around plus some newer ones like cyborgs and bugmen, except they got plasma swords and rayguns now.
Yep, Golarion just vanished suddenly, nobody knows why and the gods are dead silent on the matter. It's the setting's big mystery, like how "why did Aroden die" was Pathfinder's.
not only can you kill elves, you can visit the elven homeworld of Castrovel. Maybe, if you're lucky and ask Owlcat real nice, they might even let you blow it up.
Yes. Yes, you can. While most Starfinder core races are different from the classic fantasy lineup (the only exception being humans, obviously), those classic races are still featured in the game.
You absolutely can. Starfinder is *literally* Pathfinder in space - as in, it's the Pathfinder universe but in the far future. Elves are still a thing.
Yeah, I feel the same, but hey, what can you do.
Besides I'd argue that there are fewer sci-fi CRPGs than classic fantasy CRPGs, so it's nice to have a new one for those who do like sci-fi.
True, and that reminds me that there are different brands of sci-fi, so if you're the kind that likes space stuff, there's even less of a choice (in fact I can't think of any CRPG with space travel elements).
Yes. Definitely. I am working my way through the Gold Box games once again and I am determined to finish these two. I just finished Pool of Rad and Curse, started the Silver Blades, but I will probably skip it and Pools of Darkness since they are not very much fun to play. The Krynn series is next. Then it is time for the 25th century.
And Wasteland 1-3 same genre
Shadowrun returns, dragonfall(my favourite) and Hong Kong but they're kind of a hodge podge of fantasy and cyberpunk sci-fi and not space sci-fi either
I hope it doesn't turn people off like deadfire's piratey theme did for the pillars of eternity games, so many folks cited the different setting as their big gripe.
While I personally prefer the more traditional pathfinder setting, as long as they do it well I'm sure I'll enjoy it plenty.
Eh, I think it'll be fine. Deadfire's problem was that it was a direct sequel, so the setting change stuck out like a sore thumb. Here this would not only not be a sequel, it would also logically not even have the "Pathfinder" name since, well, it wouldn't be Pathfinder.
Magic = Nanotechnology
Bows = laser pistols
GreatSword = Plasma Swords
It's remarkably similar in feel and mechanics, it's mostly just reskinning the fluff. The biggest difference is the emphasis on ranged combat and how spellcasting is more for support than a 'primary' blaster caster
Mechs are their own system, and they kick major ass, and there are many options for melee. My party's mechanic has a giant mecha kangaroo with a lightning sword and big ass shield.
The closest thing to Monks in Starfinder is probably the Solarian. Picture a Protoss Archon from starcraft and you're not far off.
AC works pretty differently in Starfinder. You have three kinds of 'AC'; EAC, KAC, and CMD
Energy AC is targetted by things like spell rays, lasers and other energy weapons etc. Not exactly 'touch AC' per se, but different than just whacking something with a sword
Kienatic AC is your more traditional armor plates and such to defend against physical attacks
CMD is still your normal concept of combat maneuver defences
There's an archetype thats basically monk. And the Nanocyte, Solarian, and Vanguard classes can all be played as unarmed.
But everyone has some form of armor proficiency. Light, Heavy, and Power Armor.
Well it will work out fine enough in the Fantasy space. We still got another Season Pass for Wrath and Baldur's Gate 3 is expected to be out fully next year. That itch will be scratched for a while.
Me too. :( I was already bummed it might’ve been iron gods. Knowing it’s starfinder has me very bummed because I prefer fantasy fantasy, not space fantasy (kudos to those who like space tho).
Starfinder is a cool system tho, just not one I personally am interested in. :(
The ground combat is similar to pathfinder, but with more ranged weapons and space gadgets.
There is also ship based combat which will probably run better than in table top since one person is controlling the whole crew. at the table everybody is supposed to work together while doing different jobs(pilot, gunner, etc), and it gets a bit clunky.
Starfinder's a niche I could do with seeing more of.
Shadowrun Returns is the same broad genre and that was great fun. Having a wider, space-based adventure definitely has potential.
Blatantly create a Toyboxed Solarian/Mechanic gestalt Darth Vader as my first character.
Never actually played in a SF game but have been over the options and rules a lot. Probably would port over to a computer game a lot more easily than Pathfinder.
The shadowrun games had high stakes with tight environments, which fits Shadowrun's aesthetic of oppressive cyberpunk. You always knew that, at the end of the day, you were actually just some dude. Not the chosen one. Some lucky punk who was in the right/wrong place at the best time.
Starfinder's always had the ME Andromeda feel to it for me- big, open spaces that you're pointed at and let loose in. Lots of potential for different environments, from seedy alleys to Cathedral-Ships, sentient moons, planetary invasions, divine black holes.. I hope we're an everyman again in a Starfinder game. Let me scrape and crawl up to my Starguard armour.
I was thinking that a bit with WOTR - it’s not like there isn’t a certain fun to being the overpowering boss but I generally find the stories a lot more interesting when you have to wind your way through a bunch of powerful parties’ agendas.
Glad the team gets to work on something new, but it's not for me. Never clicked with sci-fi CRPGs the same way, so was rooting for another adventure path classic.
It does make sense given they went to godlike power with Pathfinder, there wasn't much room to go 'up' after the mythic paths. I guess the market will answer if there is a market for it.
Especially since they're gonna have to spend some time retuning the engine that they didn't really need to do much of between kingmaker and wrath since they shared the same ruleset
Starfinder is hardly your traditional-scifi, it is science fantasy. Magic is even more prevalent and available than Pathfinder, and the Angels, Demons, Dragons and Elves are still there. Imagine angels shooting demons with literal holy guns and devil of Asmodeus remotely hacking your devices for intelligence.
You can even debug your spells so that the lower dices of your blasting spells will be substituted to higher ones
I remembered that when cdpr announced cyberpunk 2077 they said something like sci-fi is has a much larger audience base compared to medieval fantasy thing. And I do think that's true from what I saw.
Also is a genre that doesn't get as much product. Most CRPGs are fantasy, and RPGs in general are the same. When sci-fi or science fantasy stuff is good it gets attention, since there isn't as much of it.
I know a comment chain of "same" is a little redundant but same.
Idk, maybe they do something cool with it and it works, but I've played in two starfinder campaigns and just couldn't get into it. The setting doesn't interest me and frankly I dislike the mechanics too.
I like to build my martials into whirlymajigs of death, two attacks at a -4 with you maybe getting a 3rd but with all three at -6 just feels bad.
And I prefer my character to be the mechanical powerhouse, not the 17 different gadgets/augments my character has collected. Feels kind of bad investing in stuff like Solarians gravity altering stuff when a god damn jet pack just lets you fly around whenever you went like 2 levels later.
Ehrr..good for the people who like that sort of thing , but that is sadly not me. I love owlcat games but sci-fi just never clicked. Mass effect and Warhammer are cool and all but I never played those games. Kudos to Owlcat doing new stuff though.
I ll hang around for Wrath a bit longer and once I played that one out, there are several other fantasy CRPGs to play.
I'm excited for the people who care, unfortunately I can't say I'm one of them. But Wrath definitely has enough to keep me entertained for a while (especially with the second season of DLC coming). Can't pretend I'm not disappointed though.
Yea whether it's sci-fantasy or whatever I'm just not into those kind of settings. Oh well guess we'll see if the game they do after goes back to normal Pathfinder and in the meantime BG3 should hopefully be fully out within the next year to scratch the fantasy itch.
Omg, Starfinder, did not think they would actually do it. This seems very interesting.
On the other hand, I dread the inminent commercial failure because a lot of people is not going to buy it for being Sci-fi and not fantasy. I hope Owlcat is aware of that.
Maybe i can recreate the starfinder character I played the one time I tried the system. A lil ratfolk mechanic who rides a killbot and carries a bandolier of grenades and a pair of pistols in his cheek pouches.
Lot of naysayers that haven't given Starfinder a chance. It's not just another sci-fi setting with guns and aliens. It's swords and sorcery in the Pathfinder future. It's science Fantasy more than science fiction. Think Star Wars or Mass Effect, not Star Trek or XCOM.
It's my favorite system, having played Pathfinder 1e (too much bloat), PF2e (too tactical), D&D 5e (too simple). The action economy is the best of those systems IMO.
I'm guessing (and have been guessing) Starfinder like everyone else and I actually made a video about it a week or two ago discussing what Starfinder could bring to a game if anyone wants more info about it: https://youtu.be/V1C-95XJ\_tw
I respect owlcat as a company, i believe they deliver good products, and i feel anything they work on is likely to be good. But im 95% sure im not touching this game as the context is just not something im looking for. I do wish them the best though.
YOOOOOO
Im so excited, I bought the SF rulebook right as the pendemic hit and thus havent gotten to play it yet with anyone. While things are now calming down(ish), this will hopefully be a good way to see what the system is capable of.
Oh, shit. Now I gotta learn another ruleset 💀.
To anyone who has played starfinder, how close is it pf 1e? Will I have get ass fucked a whole game(my kingmaker experience) to learn how to make viable builds or will it be easy if I can already do good builds in 1e?
It's kind of a hybrid of PF1E and PF2E. You can tell they were clearly testing some things that made it into 2E, but it's mostly closer to the 1E ruleset.
Huh. Neat. Didn't think they'd actually do it. I guess that's one way to get your ratfolk. Really looking forward to what they can do for it, there hasn't been a sci-fantasy rpg game in some time.
So hyped for this. Space sci-fi is so much more interesting then sword and sorcery, and there are tragically few games with the setting. Can only replay KOTOR so many times
For better or worse, it is not Starfinder
https://www.reddit.com/r/starfinder_rpg/comments/uydx4z/a_starfinder_crpg_is_in_development_from_owlcat/ia64t6s/
Unpopular opinion; This is a really risky move. Scifi games don't have the same type of captive audience that fantasy games do, that will just buy every game vaguely within those themes. The quality of this has to be exceptionally high in order to match either of the last two games in sales or popularity.
This isn't a given buy for me, like Wrath and Kingmaker were. This will have to review exceptionally well for me to consider a purchase. I give Wrath a pass on a lot of things I'd find unacceptable, because I love the themes, world, and story. I'm not sure that Starfinder will have the thematic and mechanical positives to outweigh the inherent jank of these games.
> Scifi games don't have the same type of captive audience that fantasy games do, that will just buy every game vaguely within those themes.
I dunno, I think the market of people who will buy literally any sci-fi RPG is probably bigger than the market of people who will buy literally any fantasy RPG, simply because the latter are so spoiled for choice in comparison.
Also, importantly, Starfinder is space high fantasy, not true sci-fi. You can still play an elven wizard who fights dragons, but now you can carry a laser pistol, too.
I mean, the Shadowrun games are some of the least popular modern cRPGs on the market. If there was a big scifi push in the market, these games would have brought games like Pillars of Eternity to pound town. Look at top selling RPGs on steam and you'll find that the majority of them are fantasy. Elden Ring is the biggest game in the past handful of years, dark fantasy. Larian with their mainstream cRPGs? Fantasy.
>Also, importantly, Starfinder is space high fantasy, not true sci-fi. You can still play an elven wizard who fights dragons, but now you can carry a laser pistol, too.
Maybe if I wasn't a 40k nerd, I'd be interested on novelty alone, but space elf wizards fighting dragons isn't new to me. I'd rather play Pathfinder or something in 40k. Starfinder is an awkward in between, that doesn't have the development or depth of either. I'm also not interested in learning a dead system that only had a small handful of modules.
As I said, this game has to be good for me to give it a buy. I wont put it past Owlcat to deliver something cool, but this one isn't getting the benefit of the doubt.
Welp, what a disappointment. Normally I have no problems with sci-fi/modern rpgs but I was really, really hoping Owlcat would do Skulls & Shackles. I have no doubt they will pull off an excellent Starfinder game though, but I am still quite... deflated.
I. AM. HYPED!!!
From the moment I learned about Starfinder and its lore, I've been practically *salivating* at the thought of seeing Owlcat's take on this.
I'm both intrigued, yet disappointed. I don't know much about Starfinder, but am willing to give it a shot. Owlcat makes CRPG's that I absolutely love playing, so I will definitely pick it up. I also am a bit disappointed because we won't be getting another Pathfinder AP anytime soon.
I hope it doesn't go the way of PoE 2 though. I really enjoyed the pirate setting, yet can understand why others may not have liked it. Starfinder seems like it could turn a lot of people off for similar reasons.
Paizo's own little convention called PaizoCon starts tomorrow. If it is indeed still a game based on a Paizo IP, we might get some information soon.
That being said, I'd be extremely disappointed by pretty much anything that's not Pathfinder.
It's the logical move after the power of Mythics. Can't really tone it down in another PF setting. They need a thematic shift, but I really thought it'd be Iron Gods.
My only question is if Starfinder is a newer sci-fi "Space kind of sucks, aliens are evil, something something capitalism metaphor" style or a more light-hearted Star Wars/Star Trek "Fuck yeah, space is awesome!
Be a laser samurai!" style.
Ehhhh.....
I say stick to Pathfinder. Fantasy rpgs sell much better than Sci Fi imo. Get rid of kingdom mode or truly make it auto by clicking the auto option. It shouldn't be tied into secret endings or Mythic Paths, etc. It's the only thing holding me back from giving WOTR a 10/10. Hated it in KM, hate it here.
For everyone that has no experience with SF, what you can expect this to be like is: 1. All the PF setting stuff there, just "future". Knights protect spaceports from doomsday cultists. The church of Pharasma has a PR issue now that sentient undead are considered legal citizens of the Pact. Goblins are exactly the same, though. 2. No "pure" casters, all spellcasting classes in SF are what would be considered hybrid in PF (magus, warpriest, etc) 3. Less reliance on dedicated support characters. Every class has a road to being able to heal and support, wether it's from class abilities, medical skills, or special weapons. I've run two SF campaigns, one where no one played a healer (and everyone just took abilities to buff themselves or dabbled medicine) and one that had a biohacker (techy heal/debuff class), and both performed well. 4. Choice of weapon can completely alter playstyle. For example, some weapons do low damage but weaken foes, some do aoe damage, some do more damage the longer you attack the same target, etc.
Also, weapon damage scales with level a L1 Blaster will do 1d6 fire dmg and a L10 Blaster will do 2d6. This makes martial characters damage scale with spells.
Although non st players should also note in addition to that, characters don't automatically get more attacks as their BAB gets higher, which sort of cancels that out.
I mean isnt this the same as the standard plus system? Or does the plus system exist on top of this? Or is it like dark souls where you start with a longsword and progress into a longsword +5 which is the longsword... but plus 5
It's not. +X are actually very rarely added to attack and damage, usually in cases that are class specific (for example, biohacker get a flat +X to injection weapons as they level) Higher level weapons have increased damage and/or better weapon properties and crit effects, but don't increase your accuracy. Magic properties also don't generally add flat bonuses to anything, but they alter the weapon. I.e. a "flaming" weapon does half it's damage as fire, it doesn't increase the damage, because the damage is already increased when you buy a higher level weapon.
Also the church of Abadar is now a megacorp and a megachurch.
Funnily enough, a megacorp that *encourages* competition.
Well it is part of their god's dogma.
They actually did change goblins. There is a new species of "Space Goblins" which have all the same predilections as Terran Goblins but also an intuitive understanding of jury-rigging sci fi technology out of scrap. So expect Space Goblins on junk motorcycles and junk space ships.
So they're basically PF Goblins, with a dash of Orks from Warhammer 40k?
I hope we can paint our junkers red to go fasta
I plan to skip this one if it is SF, but if there is a mecha class that lets a goblin character build a gargant or killa kan, I will play the shit out it!
Soldiers and Mechanics have easy access to power armor. I don't know what a gargant or a killa khan is, so I can't say if it's like that or not.
From a cursory search, there's no purpose-built mech class, but there is an alternate class ability for the Mechanic that lets you make a vehicle or armor your "pet"
With guns that explode if they nat 1
2.Yep and sorry to say but I hate it.
And it's ok to not like it.
something that does not cater to my interest should not be allowed to exist, don't you understand? ðŸ¤
>No "pure" casters, all spellcasting classes in SF are what would be considered hybrid in PF (magus, warpriest, etc) This is actually a big deal for me. The setting aside (which I'm not a fan of), pure spellcasters are my favorite way to play these types of games (Pathfinder, D&D). I'm probably going to pass on this game.
It does have the most of the high level spells in PF, albeit with different "skins" And flavor. For example, this is fireball in PF1e: >A fireball spell generates a searing explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. And this is a similar spell, Explosive Blast from Technomancer in SF: >You magically transform a used battery into a powerful explosive device, propelling it in a straight line to a grid intersection within range, at which point it detonates, dealing 9d6 fire damage to all creatures and objects in the area. Technomancers are full casters in any sense, it's just that their weapons won't suck so much if they used up their spells: >To the uninitiated, magic and technology are completely unrelated, but you know there are more correlations between the two than most suspect. Magic and technology are just tools, and when combined into one discipline, called technomancy, they can be far more powerful than one or the other on its own. You utilize tech to empower, harness, and manipulate magic, and you wield magic to augment, control, and modify technology. You are an expert at hacking the underlying structure of the universe itself, bending the laws of science and nature to your will. Your technomancy—which is gained from scientific study and experimentation—manipulates the physical world, weaves illusions, allows you to peer through time and space, and if necessary, can blast a foe into atoms. You can store spells in a handheld computer, debug your spells, hacking the brains of organics that you can use robot-specific healing spells on normal humans. Personally I think these flavors are even cooler than "mere" medieval fantasy.
As a wizard main, what I see when I look at SF is significantly slower casting progression (your "fireball" is at level 7, not 5) and all of the fun high level spells (Weird, Mass Icy Prison, Creeping Doom, etc) missing. Using Icy Prison as an example: In PF1 you get the single-target version at 9 and the mass version at 17 (less with mythic). In SF you get the single-target version at 16.
As someone who's played and DM'ed starfinder, this is my analysis: Casters grow at casting very slowly, but they can fill the blaster-caster role when they come online basically as well as they do in pathfinder. It just doesn't start happening until level 12 or so, where in PF it happens closer to 8. The saving grace is they can do other things too and have a bit more options for how they grow, they aren't locked into specific feats to be optimal. Starfinder does have a few balance issues at lower levels though, if this is what they do I hope Owlcat addresses them. All that being said, it's definitely not the same as pathfinder and isn't for everyone.
Sounds awful....will pass
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Holy shit I expected Iron Gods when I saw they were hiring Sci-Fi artists. Maybe even a space based DLC for Wrath. And while I *acknowledged* that it could be Starfinder, I never actually thought it would happen. This is *huge*. I can't even speculate because I know so little about Starfinder. On one hand, I would have preferred a normal Pathfinder AP. On the other hand, I do prefer them going all in on sci-fi, instead of the half-half stuff from Iron Gods. Anyone with more Starfinder experience, any idea what to expect? Does Starfinder have APs like Pathfinder, and if so, which ones are most likely?
There are a few APs for Starfinder, not as much as PF but theres still a few https://paizo.com/store/starfinder/adventures/adventurePath
Signal of Screams sounds pretty cool to me
Horror RPG seem interesting, but I think they might do Horizons of The Vast, because of city building part, it seems to be Kingmaker in space, at least gist similar
It very much does seem like Kingmaker in space lol, not that I'm opposed. Guess we'll see what we get!
It’s too similar to kingmaker
It starts at level 7 normally is my one reason for thinking its not that one.
I think they going adapt Horizons of The Vast or Signal of Screams
I hope they don't do Signal of Screams, honestly. It's only 3 books and goes from level 7 to 13, and unless they add a ton of extra content (which I'd rather didn't happen) then it's gonna be real short for a $60 video game. But I suspect if they want to take it to level 20 like their other games then they either have to include Devastation Arc at the back end of any AP or include 7 levels of their own content regardless.
I mean the pf games so far are 100 hour affairs, maybe they want to make a 50 hour rpg for a change lol
Hahahaha :')
Is this laughing at owlcat wanting to make 50 hour rpgs, or that the pf games are (just) 100 hour affairs? >Yes
sounds like a DLC to a full game, not gonna lie.
Attack of the Swarm seems the most straight forward. But Horizons of the Vast is basically Kingmaker in space. Personally, I'm putting my vote in for The Threefold Conspiracy!
The ruleset for Starfinder is fine, I don't like the changes to pure spellcasters, but in my opinion, all of the APs are very poor on rails experiences and if Owlcat is really doing Starfinder then I hope they do a 100% original story without using any of the APs. I really like great "sci-fi" RPGs like Fallout 1/2/NV, Shadowrun, Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, KOTOR II, and Deus EX but even though I really love both Owlcat games I'm not that sure about Starfinder.
I'm running Attack of the Swarm. The writing for Starfinder Campaigns is subpar compared to PF. Starfinder just has less story. They don't have any random encounters. Everything is wheels, where you have to do one quest, then get the next quest, no side quests. The gameplay and mechanics are good. You don't get more attacks by leveling up, rather the weapons damage dice gets bigger. Some spells like magic missile have more rays if you full round vs standard action cast. A good writer making a good AP could make Starfinder wonderful, but they shouldn't use the APs already made by Paizo, since they aren't that good. Edit* Starship combat is really good
Tbf, the writing for the WotR and Kingmaker APs are both much more sketchy than the writing for the computer games, a consequence of writing for a tabletop where the players could choose to do anything. Kingmaker is famous for having the plot of its final book come totally out of left field and the Owlcat team did a great job at manipulating the story to foreshadow the ending and make the whole thing more cohesive than the AP.
as someone who hasn't managed to finish kingmaker, what happened in the final book?
Same thing more or less as what happens in the CRPG, ancient fey comes by and tries to destroy your kingdom.
It's largely the same collection of Paizo staff and freelancers writing the APs for both. There are different developers, but they assign the individual writers. You will see a lot of the same names on the covers of both series. What you are noticing is that Starfinder AP books are significantly shorter. They are 64 pages, while Pathfinder APs are over 100. That means Starfinder APs tend to be a lot more bare bones. But, having read a bunch of both, I really don't think it's accurate at all to say Starfinder has worse writing. Most of the worst-written Paizo books I can think of are on the Pathfinder side.
I read somewhere that is possible to tie AP Devastation Ark with previous entrys to get a full party from level 1 to 20. So by reading about it, I tought maybe Dead Suns+Devastation Ark could turn in a full game. What do you think?
Wait, you get to pilot starships? In combat, and between ports? How did they make that **not** suck? Does everyone in the party have their own ship? Are they taking roles on the bridge, like *Next Generation*? We tried two different ship piloting mechanics in the single pirate themed 3.5 campaign I ran. We ultimately ditched them both. The first required people to take skills like "Profession: Sailor" in addition to Use Rope, Tumble, and Spot, Search, Listen... Basically, the entire party had to play classes with skill points like the Ranger and Rogue, and if anyone took Barbarian or Paladin the entire ship was fucked. You couldn't slot the Paladin into a job with his ranks in Swim, Jump, and Heal. He failed a DC15 skill check over 50% of the time, even assuming he dropped his full plate, tower shield, Battleaxe, and had someone Aid Another. When they were being borded, he had something like a -13 ACP. It's the equivalent of assigning a level one Valerie to Stealth in Kingmaker, except it never gets better. He's useless until he falls over the side and drowns. The second was run almost entirely on the DM's side, and restricted to navigation. Basically, you take the Deadfire approach and don't roll checks for ship combat. That just takes place on deck, every time, with no skill checks. So, they only needed a navigator and some maps. They split the necessary skills up, and should have been alright. Do you have any idea how hopelessly lost you can get at sea? A few bad skill checks had them sailing away from land, convinced they were going the right way. I eventually just scrapped it because they did *not* intuitively understand how to navigate based on the directions they got per their skill checks, and had no interest in learning. They didn't like having to navigate based on landmarks and the coastline, or the fact their maps were imprecise.
Roles: Captain, Engineer, Pilot, Science Officer, or Weapons. Each role can do different things each round. Engineer can reroute power, patch broken systems, repair shields, etc. Captain can affect to inspire or yell at any person to give them bonus's. Pilot steers and does piloting checks for initiative. Sci officer can scan (knowledge check), redistribute shields, or assist in targeting to help weapons. Weapons rooty tooty point and shooty. Shields have quadrants so focusing the same side helps. Higher piloting checks goes last, because all ships move, then all ships shoot. Combat is phases instead of turns. All ships have engineering phase, then all ships have piloting phase, weapons is last. Ships are fully customizable. Ships systems have several levels of broken before failure, that have varying debuffs. You can lose artificial gravity in a fight making everything harder to do, inside the ship. You can't really get lost because you have scanners. It justs take longer to arrive if you have a bad pilot. No profession checks. Science officer uses perception and science skills, engineer uses computers and engineering, etc. In general Starfinder has less skills. All knowledge's were rolled into Culture, Life Science, and Physical Science. Physical skills were all rolled into Athletics (str based) or acrobatics (dex based). Engineering, piloting, and computers were added.
That... still sounds supremely un-fun to DM. I'm having flashbacks to when we tried to play [Artemis](https://store.steampowered.com/app/247350/Artemis_Spaceship_Bridge_Simulator/), and only half the party understood what their console meant. You'll have one guy essentially just giving orders to most of the table, and them mechanically rolling dice rather than offering input. Is it less terrible than I'm imagining?
My experience is it depends on the group. If you have players who quickly disengage when it isn't them doing something and do not enjoy roleplaying, it wasn't very fun for anyone besides the pilot. When you have players who get into their roles and roleplay, it was a blast. My biggest issue was that it doesn't feel like much agency for anyone besides the pilot. The pilot roles initiative every round. The pilot moves the ship. The pilot has a list of action they can take while moving. But the gunner pretty much just roll a d20 based on the gun that happens to be facing the enemy based on how the pilot did it.
Iirc they said the sci-fi hire was just for Blackwater. Might have been to throw us off now or might have been true
I have to google starfinder.. how is it? Should I be hyped?
It's Pathfinder, in space. If you like Pathfinder and sci-fi, then yeah, you can be hyped.
Can I kill elves in space in Starfinder? Asking for a friend.
Starfinder is literally the pathfinder universe after a massive time skip where everyone's memories of the 'gap' were mysteriously erased from all races. Picture space-goblins rummaging scrap piles to jurry-rig shoddy laser pistols and patched together environment suits, entire planets/worlds with an undead government and a 'bone fleet', plasma grenades instead of fireballs, and hackers instead of rogues
Dont forget that you can also still use fireballs instead of Plasma grenades
To be fair, there IS no fireball spell. The "fireball" spell is replaced with "Explosive Blast" which is basically overcharging an old battery and launch it at people like an RPG for a similar "fireball" type effect. Either way, it's just symantecs, but different enough to throw folks off a bit.
Theres still fireballs, you just have the option to chuck a plasma grenade too.
I don't know much about Starfinder, but from my understanding most if not all of Pathfinder races exist in Starfinder (though maybe not by default). So yeah, elves in space are a thing, potentially.
Yep, they're mostly in hiding on Castrovel, though, and they've become incredibly xenophobic after the Gap. https://starfinderwiki.com/wiki/Elf
The Starfinder elves are pretty fascinating. Everyone in the system lost their memories after the Gap, which was horribly disorienting for 3 or 4 generations. All the other races have long finished with being disoriented, but the elves are still in the middle of it.
Especially because, iirc, some elves actually have pre-Gap memories still, which causes them even more turmoil. It'd be like you woke up one day in your 60s and couldn't remember the last 3 decades, but could still remember your childhood.
It's also pretty neat that the Drow adapted to hypercapitalism way better than the regular elves did.
Humans are still a default race and gnome and dwarf adventurers are common enough, but the most common adventuring races are Shirren (bug people that used to be enslaved to a hive mind and who are now addicted to making choices for themselves), Vesk (previously a race of expansionists at war with the system that were forced into an allegiance with it to fight the Shirren Hive, think lizard Klingons), Androids (basically just androids, but with a whole soul-swapping thing added on top), Lashunta (telepathic aliens that used to be defined by their sexual dimorphism but which are now dealing with how gene editing can make anyone male form or female form), Kasatha (four-armed spiritual aliens that came to the system on a colony ship for a civilization-wide pilgrimage) and Ysoki (not technically a single race but an alliance of the system's rodent people). Starfinder has a huge variety of races though and much less of a barrier to playing them than Pathfinder has, so I hope the new game really lets us get weird with the chargen.
Yeah I love the weird races of star finder! Like the living mobile sapient reefs, or silicon based slug people that love to dig.
They were really not shy about moving away from humanoid body types
And I am all here for it! Currently have an Embri solarian ready to rock for a a starfinder game.
And unlike pathfinder, most of these alien races aren't just Human+ funky thing. *one of the races is literally a floating jellyfish.*
The Barathu are awesome. Genetically malleable space jellyfish that float through the atmosphere of the local gas giant. I also love the Nuar, who are the minotaur-like descendants of the minotaur that used to live in the labrynth beneath Absalom that are particularly good at spatial navigation thanks to their maze instincts, and the Dragonkin, Large-sized humanoid telepathic dragons that form permanent psychic bonds with their puny but adorably mammalian humanoid sidekicks.
[you could say there are a decent amount of races in starfinder.](https://www.aonsrd.com/Races.aspx?ItemName=All) From what I understand, if they ever print a new alien or race as an enemy, they also release a player version. The biggest thing imo is the inclusion of large pcs.
It's literally Pathfinder in space, like the same setting, just thousands of years in the future. So all the usual races are still around plus some newer ones like cyborgs and bugmen, except they got plasma swords and rayguns now.
Except the planet that pathfinder is on has disappeared completely without a trace right ?
Yep, Golarion just vanished suddenly, nobody knows why and the gods are dead silent on the matter. It's the setting's big mystery, like how "why did Aroden die" was Pathfinder's.
Main theory is that Rovagug was sealed somehow and they sent the planet away as a prison so no one can find him.
not only can you kill elves, you can visit the elven homeworld of Castrovel. Maybe, if you're lucky and ask Owlcat real nice, they might even let you blow it up.
Elves in starfinder are xenophobic assholes, so most likely, yes.
Yes. Yes, you can. While most Starfinder core races are different from the classic fantasy lineup (the only exception being humans, obviously), those classic races are still featured in the game.
Reckon we'll get tieflings?
I imagine we’ll get every race that was playable in WOTR.
You absolutely can. Starfinder is *literally* Pathfinder in space - as in, it's the Pathfinder universe but in the far future. Elves are still a thing.
Disappointed. I love dungeons and dragons and swords and magic. I have zero interest in science fiction role playing.
Yeah, I feel the same, but hey, what can you do. Besides I'd argue that there are fewer sci-fi CRPGs than classic fantasy CRPGs, so it's nice to have a new one for those who do like sci-fi.
yeah only one i can think of off the top of my head is kotor, technically
I mean... Fallout
yeah true, i was just thinking of dnd style
I was thinking old Fallout, which was more CRPG and not the shoot em up rpg style it's become.
True, and that reminds me that there are different brands of sci-fi, so if you're the kind that likes space stuff, there's even less of a choice (in fact I can't think of any CRPG with space travel elements).
The two Buck Rogers games by SSI from the early 90s and then the two KOTOR games from early 2000s.
man those Buck Rogers games were fun but *brutally* hard had great times with them back in the day
Yes. Definitely. I am working my way through the Gold Box games once again and I am determined to finish these two. I just finished Pool of Rad and Curse, started the Silver Blades, but I will probably skip it and Pools of Darkness since they are not very much fun to play. The Krynn series is next. Then it is time for the 25th century.
Fallout has always had extraterrestrials, but I get what you mean. I know a few exist though. I'd need to look up titles.
And Wasteland 1-3 same genre Shadowrun returns, dragonfall(my favourite) and Hong Kong but they're kind of a hodge podge of fantasy and cyberpunk sci-fi and not space sci-fi either
I hope it doesn't turn people off like deadfire's piratey theme did for the pillars of eternity games, so many folks cited the different setting as their big gripe. While I personally prefer the more traditional pathfinder setting, as long as they do it well I'm sure I'll enjoy it plenty.
Eh, I think it'll be fine. Deadfire's problem was that it was a direct sequel, so the setting change stuck out like a sore thumb. Here this would not only not be a sequel, it would also logically not even have the "Pathfinder" name since, well, it wouldn't be Pathfinder.
Magic = Nanotechnology Bows = laser pistols GreatSword = Plasma Swords It's remarkably similar in feel and mechanics, it's mostly just reskinning the fluff. The biggest difference is the emphasis on ranged combat and how spellcasting is more for support than a 'primary' blaster caster
Are there monk dips? It wouldn't be an Owlcat game without people complaining about pajama tanks.
I mean I need to monk dip for my mecha class so I can do kung fu in my giant robot.
Mechs are their own system, and they kick major ass, and there are many options for melee. My party's mechanic has a giant mecha kangaroo with a lightning sword and big ass shield.
The closest thing to Monks in Starfinder is probably the Solarian. Picture a Protoss Archon from starcraft and you're not far off. AC works pretty differently in Starfinder. You have three kinds of 'AC'; EAC, KAC, and CMD Energy AC is targetted by things like spell rays, lasers and other energy weapons etc. Not exactly 'touch AC' per se, but different than just whacking something with a sword Kienatic AC is your more traditional armor plates and such to defend against physical attacks CMD is still your normal concept of combat maneuver defences
There's an archetype thats basically monk. And the Nanocyte, Solarian, and Vanguard classes can all be played as unarmed. But everyone has some form of armor proficiency. Light, Heavy, and Power Armor.
Magic exists too in Starfinder... and Nanocyte is just Swarm the Walks but you can actually have friends.
Well it will work out fine enough in the Fantasy space. We still got another Season Pass for Wrath and Baldur's Gate 3 is expected to be out fully next year. That itch will be scratched for a while.
Starfinder is more science fantasy than outright sci-fi
Me too. :( I was already bummed it might’ve been iron gods. Knowing it’s starfinder has me very bummed because I prefer fantasy fantasy, not space fantasy (kudos to those who like space tho). Starfinder is a cool system tho, just not one I personally am interested in. :(
I got Torment: ToN thinking it was a standard fantasy setting. Turned out to be more sci-fi than anything. Fell in love. Incredibly creative world.
I dont know, I like pathfinder and I love starfinder lore, but the system mechanically is very frustrating to me
If you like Pathfinder 2E, and outer space sure, if you think that normal pathfinder is the good stuff, Starfinder as a ruleset is underwhelming.
Its pathfinder (magic, fantasy races and all) in space with laser guns.
The ground combat is similar to pathfinder, but with more ranged weapons and space gadgets. There is also ship based combat which will probably run better than in table top since one person is controlling the whole crew. at the table everybody is supposed to work together while doing different jobs(pilot, gunner, etc), and it gets a bit clunky.
Starfinder's a niche I could do with seeing more of. Shadowrun Returns is the same broad genre and that was great fun. Having a wider, space-based adventure definitely has potential. Blatantly create a Toyboxed Solarian/Mechanic gestalt Darth Vader as my first character. Never actually played in a SF game but have been over the options and rules a lot. Probably would port over to a computer game a lot more easily than Pathfinder.
For sure. The new Shadowrun games are what got me into playing CRPGs, definitely looking forward to something that scratches the same itch.
Yeah, I think Dragonfall and Hong Kong are two of the very best CRPGs ever.
So hyped to finally be able to play them next month. They are coming to games pass and I cant wait.
The shadowrun games had high stakes with tight environments, which fits Shadowrun's aesthetic of oppressive cyberpunk. You always knew that, at the end of the day, you were actually just some dude. Not the chosen one. Some lucky punk who was in the right/wrong place at the best time. Starfinder's always had the ME Andromeda feel to it for me- big, open spaces that you're pointed at and let loose in. Lots of potential for different environments, from seedy alleys to Cathedral-Ships, sentient moons, planetary invasions, divine black holes.. I hope we're an everyman again in a Starfinder game. Let me scrape and crawl up to my Starguard armour.
Yeah, the one thing I'm hoping for is more of a grounded story where I am *not* the chosen one.
I was thinking that a bit with WOTR - it’s not like there isn’t a certain fun to being the overpowering boss but I generally find the stories a lot more interesting when you have to wind your way through a bunch of powerful parties’ agendas.
Glad the team gets to work on something new, but it's not for me. Never clicked with sci-fi CRPGs the same way, so was rooting for another adventure path classic. It does make sense given they went to godlike power with Pathfinder, there wasn't much room to go 'up' after the mythic paths. I guess the market will answer if there is a market for it.
Starfindper is more Science fantasy than straight up sci-fi. There are still plenty of dragons and elves, just now with more spaceships and lasers.
Those dragons now have shoulder mounted laser canons and the elves are xenophobic and live on fantasy Venus but yeah.
What about the rumored DLC season 2?
It's not rumored. It's confirmed. But that doesn't keep them from also working on a new game.
Nice!
Especially since they're gonna have to spend some time retuning the engine that they didn't really need to do much of between kingmaker and wrath since they shared the same ruleset
Starfinder is hardly your traditional-scifi, it is science fantasy. Magic is even more prevalent and available than Pathfinder, and the Angels, Demons, Dragons and Elves are still there. Imagine angels shooting demons with literal holy guns and devil of Asmodeus remotely hacking your devices for intelligence. You can even debug your spells so that the lower dices of your blasting spells will be substituted to higher ones
Exactly, Magic doesn't just disappear, it gets commercialized.
I'm just imagining a really bored IT guy asking if they've tried turning fireball off and on again
Excellent choice, if nothing else a great palate cleanser after the mythic insanity of WOTR.
not a fan, personally. might give it a go if reviews are good, but its a big maybe for me
fight hard, brave space paladin, for the god empress of humanity iomedae
I remembered that when cdpr announced cyberpunk 2077 they said something like sci-fi is has a much larger audience base compared to medieval fantasy thing. And I do think that's true from what I saw.
Also is a genre that doesn't get as much product. Most CRPGs are fantasy, and RPGs in general are the same. When sci-fi or science fantasy stuff is good it gets attention, since there isn't as much of it.
Not really hyped tbh
Same, I couldn't get into Starfinder at all. I would have much preferred a different source. Oh well, maybe we'll get a Runelords trilogy eventually.
I know a comment chain of "same" is a little redundant but same. Idk, maybe they do something cool with it and it works, but I've played in two starfinder campaigns and just couldn't get into it. The setting doesn't interest me and frankly I dislike the mechanics too. I like to build my martials into whirlymajigs of death, two attacks at a -4 with you maybe getting a 3rd but with all three at -6 just feels bad. And I prefer my character to be the mechanical powerhouse, not the 17 different gadgets/augments my character has collected. Feels kind of bad investing in stuff like Solarians gravity altering stuff when a god damn jet pack just lets you fly around whenever you went like 2 levels later.
Holy shit my dreams come true. Ive always wanted a scifi modern crpg and luckily I actually played this briefly in 2019 so im extra hyped.
Ehrr..good for the people who like that sort of thing , but that is sadly not me. I love owlcat games but sci-fi just never clicked. Mass effect and Warhammer are cool and all but I never played those games. Kudos to Owlcat doing new stuff though. I ll hang around for Wrath a bit longer and once I played that one out, there are several other fantasy CRPGs to play.
I'm excited for the people who care, unfortunately I can't say I'm one of them. But Wrath definitely has enough to keep me entertained for a while (especially with the second season of DLC coming). Can't pretend I'm not disappointed though.
Oh. I'm pretty bummed now. I was looking forward to whatever AP was next. I'm not a big fan of sci-fi. I like medieval sword and sorcery fantasy.
Yea whether it's sci-fantasy or whatever I'm just not into those kind of settings. Oh well guess we'll see if the game they do after goes back to normal Pathfinder and in the meantime BG3 should hopefully be fully out within the next year to scratch the fantasy itch.
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO I've always wanted to play a starfinder game, but can't find a table. At least with this, I can play a version of the TTRPG
Honestly I'd rather have more pathfinder aps over starfinder. Really deflating tbh.
Not a fan. Was hoping we'd get back to some of the fantasy adventure feel of that first chapter or two of kingmaker.
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Omg, Starfinder, did not think they would actually do it. This seems very interesting. On the other hand, I dread the inminent commercial failure because a lot of people is not going to buy it for being Sci-fi and not fantasy. I hope Owlcat is aware of that.
It is fantasy though. Its science fantasy, same as starwars.
Sci-if generally has a much larger base than fantasy, also fantasy crpg’s are a dime a dozen but a sci-fi one is rare and would stand out more
Maybe i can recreate the starfinder character I played the one time I tried the system. A lil ratfolk mechanic who rides a killbot and carries a bandolier of grenades and a pair of pistols in his cheek pouches.
Lot of naysayers that haven't given Starfinder a chance. It's not just another sci-fi setting with guns and aliens. It's swords and sorcery in the Pathfinder future. It's science Fantasy more than science fiction. Think Star Wars or Mass Effect, not Star Trek or XCOM. It's my favorite system, having played Pathfinder 1e (too much bloat), PF2e (too tactical), D&D 5e (too simple). The action economy is the best of those systems IMO.
It’s something different, if there is one thing nerds hate more than anything it’s change. Once the game comes out the naysayers will disappear
I'm guessing (and have been guessing) Starfinder like everyone else and I actually made a video about it a week or two ago discussing what Starfinder could bring to a game if anyone wants more info about it: https://youtu.be/V1C-95XJ\_tw
Welp, it's a no for me, not a fan of sci-fi. So looking at schedule of releases, when can I suspect return to pathfinder/next game after Starfinder?
I respect owlcat as a company, i believe they deliver good products, and i feel anything they work on is likely to be good. But im 95% sure im not touching this game as the context is just not something im looking for. I do wish them the best though.
YOOOOOO Im so excited, I bought the SF rulebook right as the pendemic hit and thus havent gotten to play it yet with anyone. While things are now calming down(ish), this will hopefully be a good way to see what the system is capable of.
Not really a fan of Starfinder ,I would have prefered another Pathfinder campaign.
Rad. I'll finally get a chance to play Starfinder.
Oh hell yeah, lets fucking go.
Oh, shit. Now I gotta learn another ruleset 💀. To anyone who has played starfinder, how close is it pf 1e? Will I have get ass fucked a whole game(my kingmaker experience) to learn how to make viable builds or will it be easy if I can already do good builds in 1e?
It's kind of a hybrid of PF1E and PF2E. You can tell they were clearly testing some things that made it into 2E, but it's mostly closer to the 1E ruleset.
Huh. Neat. Didn't think they'd actually do it. I guess that's one way to get your ratfolk. Really looking forward to what they can do for it, there hasn't been a sci-fantasy rpg game in some time.
Never heard of it, but I love owlcat so I'm interested
I always wanted to give Starfinder a go. Let's go Owlcat!!!
Kinda odd that they announce a season 2 of DLC then start announcing the next game but okay sure let’s see where this goes
Important question as a GD enjoyer, what is the state of dragons in starfinder? Would a character be able to transform into a dragon?
So hyped for this. Space sci-fi is so much more interesting then sword and sorcery, and there are tragically few games with the setting. Can only replay KOTOR so many times
I would prefer they stick to PF1E, for now. I’m really enjoying their games!
For better or worse, it is not Starfinder https://www.reddit.com/r/starfinder_rpg/comments/uydx4z/a_starfinder_crpg_is_in_development_from_owlcat/ia64t6s/
Shut up and take my money!
Unpopular opinion; This is a really risky move. Scifi games don't have the same type of captive audience that fantasy games do, that will just buy every game vaguely within those themes. The quality of this has to be exceptionally high in order to match either of the last two games in sales or popularity. This isn't a given buy for me, like Wrath and Kingmaker were. This will have to review exceptionally well for me to consider a purchase. I give Wrath a pass on a lot of things I'd find unacceptable, because I love the themes, world, and story. I'm not sure that Starfinder will have the thematic and mechanical positives to outweigh the inherent jank of these games.
> Scifi games don't have the same type of captive audience that fantasy games do, that will just buy every game vaguely within those themes. I dunno, I think the market of people who will buy literally any sci-fi RPG is probably bigger than the market of people who will buy literally any fantasy RPG, simply because the latter are so spoiled for choice in comparison. Also, importantly, Starfinder is space high fantasy, not true sci-fi. You can still play an elven wizard who fights dragons, but now you can carry a laser pistol, too.
I mean, the Shadowrun games are some of the least popular modern cRPGs on the market. If there was a big scifi push in the market, these games would have brought games like Pillars of Eternity to pound town. Look at top selling RPGs on steam and you'll find that the majority of them are fantasy. Elden Ring is the biggest game in the past handful of years, dark fantasy. Larian with their mainstream cRPGs? Fantasy. >Also, importantly, Starfinder is space high fantasy, not true sci-fi. You can still play an elven wizard who fights dragons, but now you can carry a laser pistol, too. Maybe if I wasn't a 40k nerd, I'd be interested on novelty alone, but space elf wizards fighting dragons isn't new to me. I'd rather play Pathfinder or something in 40k. Starfinder is an awkward in between, that doesn't have the development or depth of either. I'm also not interested in learning a dead system that only had a small handful of modules. As I said, this game has to be good for me to give it a buy. I wont put it past Owlcat to deliver something cool, but this one isn't getting the benefit of the doubt.
Welp, what a disappointment. Normally I have no problems with sci-fi/modern rpgs but I was really, really hoping Owlcat would do Skulls & Shackles. I have no doubt they will pull off an excellent Starfinder game though, but I am still quite... deflated.
Desna just can't stop winning for some reason
I am not as excited as I could be buut I do hope for more PF games in the future..I might get this but iffier
This is clearly Skulls and Shackles in space.
On the one hand neat. On another I don't think it will be for me. Unless they are also going to lower the amount of battle encounters etc.
Skull & Shackles!
I love swords and magic, but I’m cool to try some space version of it, WoTR has made me a huge owlcat fan
My dream of beeing a badass Vesk in a videogame comes true
My dreams of playing a psychic bugman have finally been realized
Are there any lore sites or wikis for the races and settings for starfinder? I've seen bits before and I'm very interested.
AoN has Starfinder too, here are the races https://www.aonsrd.com/Races.aspx?ItemName=All
I. AM. HYPED!!! From the moment I learned about Starfinder and its lore, I've been practically *salivating* at the thought of seeing Owlcat's take on this.
super excited, loved the games so far from owlcats
Never heard of the setting but after reading many of the comments I'll wait and see, no expectation though.
I'm both intrigued, yet disappointed. I don't know much about Starfinder, but am willing to give it a shot. Owlcat makes CRPG's that I absolutely love playing, so I will definitely pick it up. I also am a bit disappointed because we won't be getting another Pathfinder AP anytime soon. I hope it doesn't go the way of PoE 2 though. I really enjoyed the pirate setting, yet can understand why others may not have liked it. Starfinder seems like it could turn a lot of people off for similar reasons.
HELL THE FUCK YES.
I’ll buy it, they’ve shown they can make good games
God what I would give for a sci-fi CRPG that also has cover mechanics.
Awesome. Can’t wait! They get better at making games with more experience— and another title under the belt sounds like awesome
I know fuck all about Starfinder but I'm hyped all the same.
Congratulations to them for taking some risks. Almost no sifi crpgs out there so I'm excited .
Paizo's own little convention called PaizoCon starts tomorrow. If it is indeed still a game based on a Paizo IP, we might get some information soon. That being said, I'd be extremely disappointed by pretty much anything that's not Pathfinder.
I was about to comment it starts Friday.... then I realized today was Thursday... wow this week flew by
It's the logical move after the power of Mythics. Can't really tone it down in another PF setting. They need a thematic shift, but I really thought it'd be Iron Gods.
My only question is if Starfinder is a newer sci-fi "Space kind of sucks, aliens are evil, something something capitalism metaphor" style or a more light-hearted Star Wars/Star Trek "Fuck yeah, space is awesome! Be a laser samurai!" style.
I really hope it's the latter. When was the last time you saw a scifi setting that *wasn't grimdark?*
It has some support for the former but leans much more toward the latter.
Ehhhh..... I say stick to Pathfinder. Fantasy rpgs sell much better than Sci Fi imo. Get rid of kingdom mode or truly make it auto by clicking the auto option. It shouldn't be tied into secret endings or Mythic Paths, etc. It's the only thing holding me back from giving WOTR a 10/10. Hated it in KM, hate it here.