Starfinder
| Starfinder | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Rule System | Modified D20 | |
| Authors | James Sutter, Sarah Robinson, Robert McCreary, Owen Stephens et al | |
| First Publication | 2017 | |
| Essential Books | Starfinder Core Rulebook | |
- This game is not to be confused with Starjammer, created by the people maintaining D20PFSRD, which is Spelljammer for Pathfinder (though it is compatible with Starfinder).
Starfinder (aka Pathfinder 40k) is an RPG by Paizo Publishing released in August 2017. It is a future version of Pathfinder set IN SPACE.
Overview
- There's ratmen IN SPACE, meaning that Paizo has Skaven IN SPACE before GW has in a playable form.
- There are going to be hardcover books and a Starfinder Adventure Path, much like Pathfinder has.
- FTL travel was revealed by the new deity Triune and is achieved by traveling through a dimension called the Drift. "Drift beacons" randomly appear or are planted by clerics of Triune and reduce the risk of a Drift jump to the beacon's location; the Starstone in Absalom Station is a fuckhuge Drift beacon that also accelerates travel to the station. Whenever a ship enters the Drift, it drags entire segments of reality from elsewhere into the Drift with it. This is not at all ominous, no siree. So do be careful: you'll never know when you have to scrape the demons off of your ship's bumper.
- Golarion is fucking gone. As in totally gone, nobody can remember what happened to it, it just fucking vanished. The various races have spread out to the other planets in Golarion's system. New ones are there, too. Everyone remembers building a giant space station in orbit around Golarion while it was still definitely around and so can use its construction as a frame of reference to about when the world vanished (within a few hundred years), but no one remembers anything about the planet itself disappearing.
- The Iconic Characters are members of the Starfinder Society from that station, who have the mission of finding out what happened to Golarion.
- Goblins survived and have little space helmets.
Differences from Pathfinder
Considering that this is Paizo, the goons who made a killing off of resurrecting 3.5E, the rules for this game aren't that far removed from the original PF mechanics. Though you can't get a 1-1 translation of all the classes, you can probably be able port most of your characters over.
- Each character now has both hit points, which are hard to replace, and "stamina points," which work like hit points but can be much more easily recovered and are always lost first. HP is essentially stuck as a hybrid between racial stats (meaning that little spessrats only give 2 HP to a character while burly Vesk and chitinous Shirrens give 6 HP) and class stats (essentially like Hit Die, only with no rolling), while Stamina is given per class level + Constitution Modifier.
- The Resolve mechanic gives you a small pool of points to spend for recovering stamina, stabilizing if you're dying, and getting up if you're stable. These points are keyed off of a single stat your class is dependent on (so Soldiers pick between Str and Dex, Mystics use Wis, so on and so forth). Each class even has special uses for Resolve and backgrounds can give special circumstances for regaining them.
- In addition to your race and class, you pick a "theme" at character creation, which is basically a 5e background. Themes are things like being an Ace Pilot or a Xenoenvoy that give your character some flavor, and a few other abilities that unlock as you level, plus a small stat boost.
- Skills are largely condensed in a way that, while not identical to 5e, certainly resembles it much more than Pathfinder: a single Athletics skills rather than separate skills for Climb and Swim, for instance, or Mysticism instead of Arcana and Spellcraft.
- No charisma-based casters at all (though the Solarian and Envoy both sort of fit the niche thematically), and no full casters: the technomancer and the mystic are both half-casters. All spellcasting is distinctly 5e-ish, with lower-level spells that can be cast in higher-level slots for boosted effects. (For instance, the primary healing spell is a first-level spell, but it heals more and more as it gets cast in higher level slots, eventually also cleansing various status effects.)
- Most classes that rely on weapon-use get "Weapon Specialization" in their weapons during progression, and all of them can take it as a feat. It adds their character level to damage rolls.
- Everyone has two kinds of AC: KAC, for kinetic weapons like swords and bullets, and EAC, for energy weapons like lasers and lightsaber-a-likes. Unlike with PF where you're stuck trying to remember what armor bonuses add to Flat-Footed or Touch, this allows you to calculate your defenses a bit easier.
- Cybernetics and genetic modding are also a thing.
- Most classes start off scaling a bit slow, then ramp up at about level 11. For instance, a Solarian's energy blade does 1d6 damage at first level, then 2d6 at fifth level, but starts going up much faster at level eleven, and caps out at 12d6.
- Weapons take a page out of 4E's book and have items that scale in power alongside player levels...except they don't give them to you, no! You still have to buy these stronger guns and armors!
- Ship-building and combat will be very familiar to those who played Rogue Trader (RPG). Build Points to buy parts for your ship, the need to travel through an alternate dimension that may or may not contain unholy terrors, the whole shebang.
- The promotional material also promised that each class would totally have mechanics to help them in ship combat. Most of this is false. Not only is a majority of the mechanics keyed off of RANKS in a particular skill (Pilot for all the ship defenses) rather than the character's actual bonus, but several class bonuses are flat-out not allowed to work in a ship. Also damning is the sharply-rising difficulty curve for all your ship actions, which keys itself off of the average party level rather than some other stat
This means that if you level up high enough, your little zippy spaceship that's been extensively customized will be as impossible to maneuver for your veteran crew as a fucking freighter for a bunch of rookiesbut this was fixed in the errata. - Each character has roles during combat, similar to RT. Unlike that game though, the roles are a lot more simplified in number (Captain for leading, Gunner for shootan, Engineer for fixing, Pilot for flying, and Science Officer to manage all computer things) and complexity. All each role does is grant special abilities to use in combat.
- The promotional material also promised that each class would totally have mechanics to help them in ship combat. Most of this is false. Not only is a majority of the mechanics keyed off of RANKS in a particular skill (Pilot for all the ship defenses) rather than the character's actual bonus, but several class bonuses are flat-out not allowed to work in a ship. Also damning is the sharply-rising difficulty curve for all your ship actions, which keys itself off of the average party level rather than some other stat
Core classes
- Envoys: Use wit and charm to bolster their allies and demoralize or befuddle enemies. They also get a lot of skillmonkey powers, including "expertise" in a number of skills in a way similar to the Investigator. They have a selection of talents to select to use in order to distract enemies, but they all require an enemy to either see or hear them, which can hamstring them in specific situations.
- Mechanics: Mechanical geniuses. The class as a whole has a lot of tricks for fiddling with computers and disabling or taking over machines, and can do fun things like turning any piece of mechanical gear into a makeshift grenade or overclock their drone or cortex to put themselves in the Matrix.
- Drones are one of their choices for class themes. It's pretty obvious - it's a fucking drone, with purpose of either being a gun-rig, a scout, or a hoverdrone. Drones are always fun to use with customizable parts to work with.
- Exocortex is the other choice, hardwiring an AI into their brains. Rather than a pet drone, this allows for a Mechanic to use additional weaponry as well as a free Skill Focus feat. It also can help with hacking a bit and can target enemies for guaranteed hits, and can give themselves some of the drone's upgrades. Including a jet pack.
- Mystics: Channel the universe's mysterious energies, often through faith in a god. They're a sort of cross between Sorcerer and Cleric in that they have a special theme in them with bonus thematic spells and talents as well as the ability to heal.
- Akashic is a rather skill-focused connection. Bonuses on skill checks, the ability to re-roll with more ranks on the skill, and the power to (eventually) cast any spell you want at the cost of a higher spell-slot.
- Empath is, obviously, focused on magical empathy. The ability to read emotions.
- Healer is rather obvious. You're a medic. You keep tabs on everyone, top them off on HP when you can and eventually learn to siphon health from your enemies and cheat death itself.
- Mindbreaker allows you to commit literal mindfuckery. Your powers are focused upon inflicting as much pain as inhumanly possible, with the capstone power being able to EXPLODE HEADS.
- Overlord is also about mindfuckery, but on a more subtle scale. This allows you to brainwash people, break their resistances slowly, and eventually exert absolute control over someone.
- Star Shaman is the most spacey one. You can pilot ships good, walk in space without a suit, and turn into a star-being. The capstone for this allows you to teleport between planets.
- Xenodruid is the remnants of the Druid. Plant shenanigans, the power to talk to and transform into an animal, and even the eventual ability to reincarnate.
- Operatives: Use stealth and skill to get in and out of dangerous situations. They get a shitload of attacks with weak weapons, like a monk, and a special sneak attack trick like a Rogue, and they can pick a number of specializations to refine what kind of sneaky guy they want to be. Among all the classes, these guys are especially notorious for how powerful they are.
- Daredevil allows you to be very mobile, with the eventual ability to gain a natural swim and climb speed for more maneuverability.
- Detective gives you the ability to investigate a bit better, with the ability to eventually cast Divination to find answers when you're at a dead end.
- Explorer is the sort used to exploring all sorts of different worlds. They can explore around with special benefits and are especially familiar with places far from home.
- Ghost is probably the one people use the most for having a serious boost to Stealth (a skill they'll already have high scores on by virtue of a high Dex), making it neigh-impossible to fail. They can turn invisible and eventually even phase through walls.
- Hacker is in a similar field to the Mechanic, with the power to distract with computers. They're more focused on hacking than anything else though.
- Spy allows you to pull of any sort of disguise, eventually being able to even feed any thought-reader false information.
- Thief is more like a traditional thief. Their special ability allows them to build a contingency plan JUST when something goes wrong and derail the DM's plans to bust your asses if it goes right.
- Solarians: Shape the energy of stars and black holes into armor and weapons for themselves. Weirdly, their cosmic-energy weapons do normal kinetic damage (although some of their class powers change that). Fluff-wise, they seem like Jedi, being warrior monks who represent a universal force and gain mystical powers from their devotion to that force. The Solarians are attuned to a sort of ill-defined cosmic cycle that's somehow connected to stars. This manifests as a mote of either light or dark that floats around them, which they turn into either a weapon or armor (you pick which at first level and can't change it). Gameplay wise, they're melee spell-combatants who build up energy points by being in combat, then spend these points to set off magical effects. They can choose to build either Graviton or Photon points, which can then trigger associated spells. Graviton tends to be more focused on moving and controlling your enemies, whereas Photon is more about damaging and dazing. They have minor magic effects that they can use basically whenever, but their show-stoppers require them to be fully attuned to the associated force (basically, to have spent three rounds attuning themselves). Also, they basically have to balance the number of Gravity and Photon tricks they know or suffer harsh penalties. All in all, they play sort of like a Magus mixed with a Cataclysm-era Druid. It's kind of complicated, but fun to play. Also, pick a weapon kid. It scales better and is cooler. The armor is basically screwing yourself.
- Soldiers: Specialize in heavy weapons and armor. They share a Fighter's bonus feat selection, but differentiate themselves by picking from combat styles that alter how they work and a not-shit save and skill progression. They also learn "gear tricks" to boost up their weapons and armor in ways most other classes can't.
- Arcane Assailant allows you to punch through resistances and corporeality before anyone else and imbue weapons with special effects like they were magical.
- Armor Storm focuses on wearing heavy armor and making sure you're not hamstrung by it. You naturally gain proficiency in powered armor (literal walking tanks) and giving you the full mileage and then some from your suit.
- Blitz is about aggression. You intend to rush in head-first, learning how to ignore pain and throw everything into an attack.
- Bombard makes you a mix between Demolitions Expert and Heavy Weapons Guy. You can make your own grenades, you can punch harder with heavy guns, and make explosions get more boomy.
- Guard is the defensive style. Extra comfort in the armor is the start, and the end is ignoring conditions and being such a walking tank that you can make yourself a wall to your buds. Power Armor Included.
- Hit and Run is switch-hitting: the class. Run in, lay a few blows, and hop out before they hit you.
- Sharpshoot is for snipers. You aim so well that you can ignore cover and hit them in their weak points for maximum damage.
- Technomancers: The magical version of computer programmers, hacking the laws of physics. They're essentially techno-Wizards, with an electronic bound item (and no familiar) and a bunch of special talents allowing them to mess with equipment and spells to their liking. They eventually even have the ability to fuse spellslots together to cast bigger spells.
Races
Like 2/3rds of these are already available as non-core PC races for Pathfinder, but heavily rejiggered to fit the new system. There are also rules and fluff for the core races of Pathfinder, with some tweaks (like no speed penalty for being Small) to fit the Starfinder rules.
- Androids: Artificial people. Are generally pissed off about being created as a servitor race, complete with occasional literal slavery, so they intentionally distance themselves from the human cultures they broke away from. They have no gender because they're robots. Crunchwise they have similar social penalties to their Pathfinder counterparts, and retain many of their immunities. The only difference here is that they can wire themselves with an armor upgrade to get the benefits of the upgrade without actually wearing armor.
- Humans: Everybody knows humans. They are about the only race that didn't get nerfed in the transition from Pathfinder, or in comparison to their most-obvious Pathfinder equivalents, and so are just as overpowered as they've always been.
- Kasathas: Four-armed aliens from a desert world. They invented the Solarian traditions. Their four arms are unfortunately nerfed such that they can't quad-weapon wield, the system as a whole makes multi-weapon fighting a rough concept for just about anyone without multiple attacks. And unfortunately, they lost nearly all their good, general purpose abilities, like AC boosts, in the transition, and instead kept all their situational abilities, such as not taking movement penalties in desert terrain, presumably to "balance" the power of their now-neigh-useless four arms.
- Lashuntas: A race of telepaths. They choose which subrace they get to be at puberty, which mostly determines ability scores and fluff like social standing. The two subraces are tall, slender and attractive and short, broad and strong; both are reminiscent of the golden age of pulp SF. It used to be that only women can become the former and men always became the latter, but with recent (progressive) changes the two can now pick, with government-sponsored aptitude tests making the rounds. This means that their men can now also be tall, slender and bishie while the women can be short, broad and swole.
- Shirrens: Insectoid people who recently broke free from a predatory hive mind. Literally addicted to making choices for themselves. Also telepathic. A slightly more original take on the bug alien trope. Not a Pathfinder port.
- Vesk: Powerful reptilian aliens, with Klingon honor-culture. Have natural weapons, armor proficiencies, that kinda deal. Nobody likes them because they only just stopped warring with everyone else, but everyone tolerates them because they're handy in a fight and make good mercenaries that can be pointed away from civilized people and towards the dangers of deep space. Fit the half-orc niche of the excellent bruiser race. Also not a Pathfinder port.
- Ysoki: A plucky and hotheaded race, often called "ratfolk," with a bit of similarity to the Pathfinder version. Not actually Skaven in space, but don't let that stop you from rolling Space Thanquol. Enjoy a number of benefits from their Moxie trait, including easily running around underfoot and standing up as a swift action if knocked down. Also they have cheek pouches able to store small objects like ammo and bombs like a chipmunk.
- The usual Elves, Halflings, Dwarves and so on are offered as "Legacy Conversions". If you want to play them, you can, and there are rules for them in the back of the book, but it seems that none of the old races are going to be strongly supported.
Alien Archive
The first Bestiary didn't just contain monsters to drag into whatever story you make, but also several new PC races as well. Neat!
- Barathus: Weird hardy gasbag things from a gas giant. They float around and have some sort of shapeshiftery.
- Contemplative: BE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BRAIN...on a teeny tiny body. So tiny that you can't carry anything bigger than a pistol without breaking your psychic focus on flying. They're not only able to fly with the power of their minds, but they're also super smart.
- Draeliks: Humanoid banana-looking men. They have some spell like abilities and do good with darkness.
- Dragonkin: Humanoid Dragons! Hell yeah! They're effectively dragons on two legs with all the basic benefits of being a dragon...and they can only partner up with one ally, granting them both the best Initiative score between them.
- Drow: Yeah, they're here too. Almost like elves, but with racial spell like abilities light sensitivity. If they grab a specific feat, they can also effectively detect anything in the darkness.
- Formians: Four-legged bugmen. They get natural weapons and blindesense with smell.
- Goblins: Now with silly space helmets! They also can slap together quick fixes to things.
- Grays: A surprisingly stereotypical alien race. Flimsy, but they're psychic and can phase out of existence for concealment for a few times each day.
- Haans: Giant freaky primitive space... spiderthings. They spit fire and make web balloons.
- Ikeshti: Closest thing we have to Kobolds for now. They hail from a desert world, they can shed their skin to get flexible, and they squirt blood from their eyes.
- Kalos: Fishmen who can't operate on land without suits, but on sea they have blindsense (sound) and lowlight vision.
- Maraquoi: Monkeymen with blindsense (sound). They have prehensile tails.
- Nuars: SPACE MINOTAURS! They charge into battle without penalties and have horns.
- Reptoids: Shapeshifting space lizardmen. They have claws when not turning into someone else.
- Ryphorians: Trimorphic pointy-eared aliens. They get a spare feat, the elves' +2 to perception, and either resistance to cold or fire (or both and take longer before needing to test Fortitude for surviving).
- Sarcesians: Space mothmen. They get a spare skill rank (like humans) and grow giant space-wings for flying when in space.
- Shobhads: Brutish four-armed aliens that look straight outta Oddworld. They're quite fast, get Orc Ferocity, and they resist cold.
- Skittermanders: Little six-armed stuffed critters. They can move twice in a turn and are extra grabby.
- Urogs: Bizarre electrical monsters that are slow, but sense enemies through electrical currents. They also have extra skill ranks.
- Verthani: Gangly humanoids. They gain Skill Focus as a natural ability and have chameleonic skin. Also useful is their ability to stack two implants to one location, though it's for one slot and one of them must be cybernetic.
- Witchwyrds: They have four arms, each of which is capable of absorbing magic missiles and firing them back at someone.
- Wrikreechees: The prawns from District 9. They're rather resourceful, with bonuses to grab small things, swim speeds, and a bonus to cover, but they're slow on land.
Books
- August 2017 saw the release of the Starfinder Core Rulebook as promised, making Paizo better at releasing books on time than some publishers. It has mostly everything you need to run a game, even if the character options are a bit bare out of the box.
- October 2017 will see the release of the Alien Archive, aka the Monster Manual for the game. This puts about two months between the release of the two books, so have fun either porting over monsters from Pathfinder or exclusively fighting humanoid opponents. The book also comes with special equipment all the different NPCs use along with all the prices and stats. For example you can now buy a laser sniper rifle the cybercommandos use. Instead of opting for the vanilla bolt action. Along with many different magic, tech and hybrid items.
Just like it's predecessor, Starfinder has several prewritten adventures for GMs to use if they feel unoriginal enough.
- Dead Suns: The Adventure path focused on figuring out just what the fuck happened to Golarion.
Gallery
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The image used to announce the game.
