Paizo has dropped some major, MAJOR announcements for Starfinder at GenCon and they have officially announced a ton of information. Here is everything we know about the new game.
Setting
It seems to be set a few hundred years past the current time of Pathfinder. Golarion has vanished and a few hundred years is just missing from people’s memories. There are no records of this time and it will be a HUGE mystery in the new game.
The new setting will be based around the solar system Golarion is in. Distant worlds is the foundation of all of this but it is just in the distant future. Absalom Station is floating over were Golarion used to be and will be there heart of the new setting. It is very easy to get back to Absalom station and everyone is vying for control of it.
The setting is around exploring new worlds so there will be a lot of new places to explore. This is for both players and third party groups to go nuts with and apparently they are already getting request from third parties to start making new worlds.
The Multiverse is still the same, all of the same planes exists though it has been a long time so who knows what is different. The Gods will also be different, apparently some of the current Gods aren’t as popular and new Gods have taken their place.
Races and Classes
All races that are core races in Pathfinder will be in Starfinder, but there will be new races in the core book. While some of this is being kept close to the chest, four of them have been confirmed to be, Humans, Ratfolk, Androids and Kasatha. There will be three other races in the core, but they would not announce them at this time.
The seven base classes have been announced and I am pretty excited about them.
- Solider: they will be similar to the fighter, being a weapon master and using one type of weapon expertly.
- Operative: This sounded an awful lot like a rogue to me, being a heavy skill user and being a bit more of specialized fighter.
- Envoy: This is a charismatic buffer and face of the party, sounding similar to a bard. Princess Leia was given as an example of their role.
- Mechanic: This one sounded truly bonkers. With the ability to create a robot or an A.I. you could use it as a kind of high tech summoner, or druid. I was really excited about it.
- Mystic: this sounded like a Jedi to me, and was described as an Oracle type character. Drawing their power from magic but not worshipping anything.
- Technomancer: Oh boy oh boy, so this sounded like what would happen if a computer programer found magic. It is such an unusual idea and was a true hybrid of magic and technology.
- Solerian: they really saved the best for last. This class is so different than anything I’ve ever seen. They see the ebb and flow of energy and entropy and use those powers to great effect. Apparently you have to be very careful which abilities you use. If you use an energy ability then your next energy ability will be more powerful but you entropy abilities will be weaker.
The monsters will have a two page spread. Now some of this was Erik Mona being silly but I do think there was a lot of truth to it. The monsters will have two pages so that players can use crazier races in the future, and he wants things like floating cubes to be playable races. It sounds amazing if they can pull it off, but one thing is for sure, there will be lots of crazy races.
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How Much Content to expect
They will not be producing as much Starfinder material as Pathfinder. They seem to want people to be able to play both and they don’t want to overwhelm people with the cost of two RPG’s.
A portion of the core book will have campaign setting details. While it will be very easy to use the system for other settings they are really trying to encourage people to use the setting … but based on what I’ve seen that shouldn’t be too hard.
What about Items?
Magic Items will be rarer as technology has slowly taken over. We didn’t get a good answer on how important equipment will be or how they will balance that with alien physiology. It is likely this is the biggest thing they are still working on. Cybernetics and magical enhancements will be very important though.
Last, but certainly not least, space ships will be very important. Space combat rules will exist and people will be required to fill multiple roles. They described it has meeting half way between BattleTech, and SpellJammer. They wanted everyone to be involved but it to not be too crazy detailed. They mentioned Star Wars and Serenity a lot when talking about the style and feeling of ships. They like the idea of one ship being as much a character as the party.
This is the biggest news about Starfinder yet! I am very excited about it and it seems like everyone at Paizo is has well! It is expected to drop at GenCon 2017.
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