Quote from: yosemitemike on August 31, 2024, 05:56:26 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 31, 2024, 04:16:22 AMYeah. Extra attacks is a big can of worms. I can understand a system that just goes "Nope!".

Dual wielding with iterative attacks was a giant pain in the ass in Pathfinder 1e.  I attack 8 times with a different bonus for each attack.  Great.  Let's spend 15 minutes doing that.  I think they got rid of iterative attacks too.  It has been 7 years or so.

Dual wielding also offered no real advantage for all the feats you had to take in order to do it. I'm fine with a game reflecting that fighting with two weapons is not actually as good as players think, but if a character is spending eight feats on something, it should be better than taking power attack and swinging around a claymore. While I appreciate that PF1 did try to make dual wielding a mid-point between sword & board and a two-handed weapon with two-weapon defense feats, that's just more feats a character has to take.

I thought Starfinder's approach to extra attacks was a pretty good compromise. You either take a single attack, or you sacrifice some accuracy to make two. It kept things moving better than iterative attacks with different bonuses. Also it made combat more interesting, because moving (and thus giving up your iterative attacks) was just too big a penalty for a character to ever do it.

Like PathFinder, StarFinder's biggest sin is that it is afraid to have an identity -- Everything and the kitchen sink is in the game setting, but nothing is really differentiated so it merges into grey goo.

Even worse, while the setting itself tries to throw Star Wars, Star Trek, Starship Troopers, Alien, Predator, Terminator, Blade Runner, X-Men, and every other sci-fi/fantasy setting into a blender, the rules system itself doesn't really try to emulate any of these settings authentically.

Why are there characters regularly fighting with melee weapons in the XXst century with all kinds of ballistic & energy weapons in common usage? Because this is a staple of D&D/Pathfinder.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 30, 2024, 01:22:03 AMI looked at a review on YouTube, and found out that the playtest PDF is available for free.

StarFinder 2E playtest PDF for free from Paizo

At least now I can read it and see what I think.

I'll say this right now. I will likely never play it.  It is just one of those things I'll get as a collector, not a player.  If I actually had to play Star Wars right now, it would be a toss up between Mini-Six Bare Bones or Tiny-D6 Frontiers (with my own, custom "Precognitive" psychic power as another option, complete with using a sword to deflect ranged attacks).

But, as I said, I love to collect free rulebooks and read thru them just for fun.

One of my players picked it up. I had a glance at it and was thoroughly unimpressed. Reminded me of the 3e D&D 3rd party setting Dragon Star.

I'm happy it's successful for Paizo.

I have no fucking clue who this game is for. What bizarre Playerbase there is that says "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons in Space, but not like... yaknow Spelljammer, more like Star Wars, but NOT Star Wars."

But they apparently exist because it's a successful game!

There is an audience for being a Paladin on a Spaceship fighting Aliens that's NOT Star Wars.

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 03, 2024, 05:55:37 PMI have no fucking clue who this game is for. What bizarre Playerbase there is that says "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons in Space, but not like... yaknow Spelljammer, more like Star Wars, but NOT Star Wars."

It's the same audience as the one for plenty of OSR sci fi games. Lots of people genuinely believe their preferred version of the D&D rules can do any kind of game. Even more people just think any system works about as well for any genre and just want to play the rules they already know.

Also, the native Starfinder setting isn't that much like Star Wars. Yeah, the Solarian class is clearly supposed to be aesthetically close enough to Jedi, but the lore is all different for them, there's no evil empire, a much smaller number of common races, and so on. If anything I'd say it's more like the product of stretching a D&D skin over Mass Effect.

Edit for repeat posting instead of editing.

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Edit for repeat posting instead of editing.

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 03, 2024, 07:14:21 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 03, 2024, 05:55:37 PMI have no fucking clue who this game is for. What bizarre Playerbase there is that says "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons in Space, but not like... yaknow Spelljammer, more like Star Wars, but NOT Star Wars."

It's the same audience as the one for plenty of OSR sci fi games. Lots of people genuinely believe their preferred version of the D&D rules can do any kind of game. Even more people just think any system works about as well for any genre and just want to play the rules they already know.

Also, the native Starfinder setting isn't that much like Star Wars. Yeah, the Solarian class is clearly supposed to be aesthetically close enough to Jedi, but the lore is all different for them, there's no evil empire,

Ahem.

Quotea much smaller number of common races, and so on. If anything I'd say it's more like the product of stretching a D&D skin over Mass Effect.

I'd agree. But then Mass Effect was in part inspired by space opera like Star Wars so...

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 03, 2024, 08:34:25 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 03, 2024, 07:14:21 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 03, 2024, 05:55:37 PMI have no fucking clue who this game is for. What bizarre Playerbase there is that says "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons in Space, but not like... yaknow Spelljammer, more like Star Wars, but NOT Star Wars."

It's the same audience as the one for plenty of OSR sci fi games. Lots of people genuinely believe their preferred version of the D&D rules can do any kind of game. Even more people just think any system works about as well for any genre and just want to play the rules they already know.

Also, the native Starfinder setting isn't that much like Star Wars. Yeah, the Solarian class is clearly supposed to be aesthetically close enough to Jedi, but the lore is all different for them, there's no evil empire,

Ahem.

Ok, it's been a long time since I read the book. What I was trying to say is that the Starfinder system isn't about a galactic empire that rules everything and the heroes are expected to rebel against. If memory serves, the book suggests Absalom Station as a campaign hub, which made me think of the Mass Effect citadel. The whole mysterious memory gap thing is reminiscent to me of the Mass Effect backstory with the Reapers.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 03, 2024, 08:34:25 PM

Quotea much smaller number of common races, and so on. If anything I'd say it's more like the product of stretching a D&D skin over Mass Effect.

I'd agree. But then Mass Effect was in part inspired by space opera like Star Wars so...

Again, sure, but Star Wars doesn't hold a monopoly on space opera. Mass Effect doesn't feel much like Star Wars to me. You could fairly call it "Dragon Age in Space", but to the extent that it draws from outside source material, it's  more like Babylon 5 than anything else.

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 03, 2024, 05:55:37 PMI have no fucking clue who this game is for. What bizarre Playerbase there is that says "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons in Space, but not like... yaknow Spelljammer, more like Star Wars, but NOT Star Wars."

People who want to play Pathfinder in space.

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 03, 2024, 09:37:06 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 03, 2024, 08:34:25 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 03, 2024, 07:14:21 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on September 03, 2024, 05:55:37 PMI have no fucking clue who this game is for. What bizarre Playerbase there is that says "I want to play Dungeons and Dragons in Space, but not like... yaknow Spelljammer, more like Star Wars, but NOT Star Wars."

It's the same audience as the one for plenty of OSR sci fi games. Lots of people genuinely believe their preferred version of the D&D rules can do any kind of game. Even more people just think any system works about as well for any genre and just want to play the rules they already know.

Also, the native Starfinder setting isn't that much like Star Wars. Yeah, the Solarian class is clearly supposed to be aesthetically close enough to Jedi, but the lore is all different for them, there's no evil empire,

Ahem.

Ok, it's been a long time since I read the book. What I was trying to say is that the Starfinder system isn't about a galactic empire that rules everything and the heroes are expected to rebel against. If memory serves, the book suggests Absalom Station

Ok, every time previously that I've said "Golarion Station", I meant Absolom Station. *Embarrassed*

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 03, 2024, 11:21:02 PMPeople who want to play Pathfinder in space.

That's about as tight a description as you can get.

I played in a Starfinder 1.x game through the first module + 1/2 of one of their adventure paths.

The system of 1.x was essentially Pathfinder + a number of enhancements _and_ in a future version of the "Golorian" universe. It is space fantasy, but far more fantasy than something like Star Wars.

Overall, it was fun and, really not much of a step beyond Pathfinder 1.x. But the classes were really, really tied to the total campaign setting. I think some could come up with an alternative campaign setting but, it would be far more work than making an alternative campaign setting to Golorian.

One thing I thought interesting is that their bestiaries were set up to add playing many of the 'beasts' as PCs. As with Pathfinder though, some are obnoxiously cute.

If you really want to play the Paizo setting in a space future, its for you.

I played the first edition for a few months, and eeeeehhhh.  The mechanics are mediocre at best and highly treadmilly: in some cases the DCs scale precisely with your levels such that you have a 50-50 chance of your skill working at level 1, and still have a 50-50 chance of your skill working at level 10.  In the first printings the game was so intensely stupid that you actually had a worse chance of your skill checks succeeding at higher levels.  That's been errataed in more recent printings, but speaks to the overall quality.

Gear is also tied to level with people only willing to pay like 5% of an item's value when a player sells it because reasons, while the book states that higher level equipment won't be sold to lower level PCs despite sitting right there on a store's shelf, also because reasons.  Because Starfinder is basically using D&D HP that build up with level, your level 1 1d6 sword will quickly become useless and you might be eyeing that level 5 5d6 sword, but it costs exponentially more and won't be sold at all unless the character is at least level 4, an utterly ham-fisted way to keep equipment in the GM's court.

There are some okay races around that at least look pretty cool, but the setting as a whole is very bland.  There's a general 'stuff is kinda going on here and there', but no truly major events are occurring in the galaxy, while the Starfinder Society exists to make the PCs into errand boys doing whatever quests that cross the GM's mind.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 04, 2024, 01:07:51 AMOk, every time previously that I've said "Golarion Station", I meant Absolom Station. *Embarrassed*

I had to look the name up, too. Safe to say it's not a very memorable setting.