Facinating:
The new damage system uses
  Resolve
  Hit Points
  Stamina

Where Hit Points and Stamina both increase almost similar to how old pathfinder hitpoints did, with slight modifications, and Resolve increases at a much slower rate, more like HD or BAB.

What it reminds me of, was similar to my modification I'd been considering for 5th edition.  Splitting the Hitpoint pool down to two pools, a HP and Vitality pool.  With Vitality representing more quickly/easily healed damage.

The interesting difference I note is that I had magic healing by default targeting/restoring vitality, not hitpoints as the standard.  StarFinder has magic healing healing hitpoints, not staminia.  Actually, restoring stamina is supposedly, other than the easy and natural restoration via expending Resolve and time, is apparently so far much harder.

I'm contemplating a couple changes already, which would help deal with one complaint I already heard about.  [people taking a critical hit, and getting a maiming injury, yet potentially only taking Stamina damage, that might be shrugged off after 10 minutes, yet still having technically lost a limb.]  My idea being, relatively simple.  When someone takes a critical hit, you roll for damage twice (or three times, depending on the multiplier).  You need to keep track of the three damages separately first.  Pick one of the multiple damages(normally people choose the largest), and it gets applied to the bottom of the HitPoint pool, even if you have stamina left.  The rest of the damage gets applied to the stamina pool until it is consumed.

Also, I'm considering changing non-lethal damage a slight bit.  Having it always apply to stamina.  However, non-lethal damage, will continue to reduce one's stamina to negative levels.  If one's stamina exceeds their remaining HP, they are knocked unconscious, but not dying.  I'm also thinking if their stamina drops below -max HP or stamina, non-lethal damage begins doing lethal damage due to shock.

I'm also contemplating potential implementations of my grievous wounds implementations, which limits HP recovery to 1hp/day from those wounds, and might temporarily reduce their max HP and max Stamina pools while in effect.  However, this could make critical hits extremely effective, and even debilitating.  [the question being, if this is OK, and desirable or not]

Really, the StarFinder rules are very similar to taking approximately half of the HP pool and making it operate more similarly to the 5th edition rules, save restoring the full pool each time, but probably slightly less often.

I also don't know if I like monsters having only HP.  Even though Stamina won't normally matter, it might with respect to a critical, for instance.  Also some things, such as certain poisons or other additional damages, we might require the primary attack does some HP damage before it kicks in.

Anyway, just some quick thoughts.  And I find it interesting how I compare this new ruleset to the set I was developing for a variant for 5th edition.

So supposedly, multiclassing exists in Starfinder, but is supposedly 'discouraged'?  I'm curious how, but don't know for sure.

Only thing I've found specifically regarding multiclassing is that your primary stat can be different for different classes, but for things that relate to your character level not class level, (such as resolve) your primary attribute which you use, is defined as the attribute for your class you have which has the highest bonus.  This seems both reasonable, as well as beneficial, with respect to multiclassing, so I'm curious how it is supposedly being discouraged.

Perhaps multiclassing doesn't work with archetypes, or themes?  Haven't gotten to look at either of them.

---

The Solarians certainly appear to be "Golarion's specialized form of Jedi"  It is definitely designed to be different enough to not step on any toes, but it certainly has this Mystical Warrior with special powers, and potentially a special 'weapon'.

I'm curious how hard it would be to translate some of the StarWars d20 or Saga edition components into StarFinder to allow actual Jedi.  If someone wanted to play in the Starwars universe.

I just got a chance to start reading Starfinder core rules.. so am thinking about what you have said.

But have a Question.. Creating undead skeletons is and evil act.
But what about creating magically commanded robots?

Also picture an offer by a mercenary guild of a reward to a party that recovers a 7th level weapon believed to be in the hands of a 3rd level NPC.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:33, Sat 09 Sept 2017.

Creating undead, is an evil act.  The animated force is generated, created by means of negative energy, so is considered a negative/entropic act.  Animating a robot is animation by way of Construct, which is either Technological or Transmutational power (at least according to old Pathfinder).  If someone took and animated a classroom's plastic skeleton model, I'm fairly certain it would not constitute an evil act.  Actually, since I'm not certain that creating a flesh golem is considered an evil act, it is possible that one might actually be able to use Transmutationaal magic to animate a human skeleton that would not be an undead, but would be a bone golem, or simply just a medium animated object.  It would not have the traits of a skeleton, but instead the traits of a medium animated object.

As to the thought of emancipating a level 7 item from a level 3 NPC, I can't help but wonder about all the 'leveled' items stuff.  What stops a level 1 soldier from wielding a level 20 melee weapon?  (other than cost)  It seems like it might make sense for there to be more than just cost keeping someone from building an elite strike force, by buying really expensive equipment and giving them to disposable 1st level characters.

A part of me wonders if a person should take a penalty to hit (or become considered unproficient) with weapons if they are using an item more than one level higher than their own level.  And if more than that perhaps taking some kind of a minus to the damage done. (bit it a reduction in number of dice damage, or a minus per die, or perhaps just a flat penalty of some sort)

Maybe it doesn't matter, but it still leaves me wondering.

In one way, I kind of wonder if one could perceive wielding a 'my level' +1 as sort of being similar to getting a masterwork weapon.  But perhaps some of these more powerful weapons might be too much for most less experienced wielders from using as they are truly intended to use them.

You might be able to have fun, if have a character using a higher level item, give them some penalty to the use until they use the device in a real combat (high pressure, high stakes, situation, and they roll a 1, botching a roll, and they continue in the combat, and their next roll in that combat is a success.  That advances their 'effective level' with respect to only that specific weapon instance.

Curious a bit about the scaling of damage between persons and starships?

It comes a little be from the thought of having rules for Mecha.

I've contempleated for some time an idea of having a BattleTech like set of rules for such giant robot battle armor/robots.  I know one of the designers was quoted as saying they would love to see Mechs in StarFinder, but that the rules weren't going to be there to start with.

Wish I had more time to throw things together to contemplate it.

I think it would be kind of neat to have Mechs be able to have STATS and run around and battle somewhat similar to Pahtfinder or StarFinder Melee.

Thoughts involve, designing mech by choosing a frame.  The larger the frame, the bigger, (more HD) the mech can be.  However, potentially one can uses a stronger frame, for a smaller mech, and that would boost its CON.  Once you have your frame, you would need to add an engine, armor and accessories.  The engine would power movement, and energy type weaponry.  In addition to just raw movment, some of the design can give you movement speed, but some of it could also potentially be used to boost your DEX.  [although as your mech size goes up, there is probably a slow reduction to your base DEX]  Actually, STR is probably another thing that one's drive can help power, and larger mech's probably default to having a higher minimum STR.

I haven't completely figured out howto have the pilot affect the attributes of the mech.  Thoughts include things like making the pilot's DEX being a limit to the mech's DEX, or making DEX + Skill ranks a limit, or haing the Skill Bonus be the limit.  Or another thought was to have the pilot make a 'Pilot' roll at the start of battle, and that would potentially generate something akin to a Assist Other roll that would allow them to earn some sorts of bonuses to their mech stats, or abilities, or rolls if they succeed.  (and potentially modified by how well they made the roll by)

Quick thought:
 Mech are a form of Robot, which is inhabited/guided by its 'pilot' and doesn't have its own will.

At the start of a combat or 'scene' a pilot makes a skill check.  The results behaves somewhat like an Aid other check, giving the mech a boost during the encounter, but failed rolls may unlike normal Aid others roll produce some form of penalties.  [also, not being proficient in such 'driving' would generate a penalty]

If piloting roll gave a bonus, they can use it each round during the encounter, or there might be certain other additional special options/checks a pilot could make.  [perhaps if we make the Assist/Pilot roll high enough, if they make it they get a +2 bonus they can use.  However, for each 5 they fail it by, they might receive some sort of -1 penalty that might apply to something.

I haven't seen what sort of scale/damage resistance/ and such Starfinder has typically assigned to big robots, so I'm not certain how 'powerful' such Mechs should be, as compared to a personal scale.

  One tradition of Mechs is over heating if "pushed" or in a hot enviroment.  The other question might include the question of what level a mech might be.  annd the possibility of such a wrong level mech being liable to over heat since the driver is Assumed to be pushing, just to drive it.
  The next issue is making sure we understand the relationship mechs and powered armour have and how we differentuat.

A possibility is instead of giving the party a ship make each medium or heavy mech the equivalent of a personal ship.

Even to using ship design rules as a base starting point.  then mechize it from there.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:31, Sun 17 Sept 2017.

I've only seen a bit of demonstration via youtube video of a spaceship combat, and read a little bit from the SRD, but I do understand that each time you cross one or more damage thresholds, each one 20% of the HP I believe, you roll for a potential 'critical effect/damage' that somehow impairs the ship.  I kind of like the idea of that for mechs.  Or using something similar.

Powered armor, in its simplest sense would simply be big heavy armor that might take skill to use, but probably provides you boosts to some attributes, in addition to providing significant defense, and likely providing you with some built in weapons, or boosted melee damage via powered fists or other built in melee attachments.  They presumably would basically use the normally everyday rules and simply modify the 'person' wearing them, granting them the boosts or special abilities, as long as they are properly skilled, and if not, take some sort of penalty or reduced effect.

At the point where a mech is so much larger than the person in it, it gets to the point where it is a vehicle/robot/war machine and not an armor.  At that point, I see it as likely in a different phase.  Options might include trying to use certain aspects of the pilot's character for certain things, but the hitpoints, and many of the attributes and aspects of the mech would presumably be more defined by the mech, rather than the pilot.  Large enough, you could probably justify having a mech be a land based 'spacecraft' and simply use modified mech distance/movement scales between them and base the rules off of them.

As you said, mech's overheating from being pushed too far is certainly a part of the genre of mech battles, so it might be cool to include some sort of aspect of that in such rules.  I think unlike battletech, I think the size of the mech should play a part in how much heat a mech can withstand/contain/retain, such that larger mechs with more mass take longer to overheat with the same weapons.

Actually, I see a few different aspects that can/could be considered.  Heat capacity (how much before you start overheating), as well as Power capacity (how much energy is available before you hit power overloads, and brown outs), and even Kinetic capacity (how much physical force can a mech take before tending to lose control or balance of the mech and crashing down) as some different ideas.

Examples:
Shooting a whole bunch of energy weapons spikes the heat of a mech, causing it to potentially begin to overheat.  This could be exasperated by being hit by a flamer, or plasma cannon adding to the heat.
Shooting a pair of Gauss cannons from a little mech might generate a massive kickback that might knock down the mech.
Or you might have so many energy powered weapons on your mech that you literally don't have the power generation capacity to fire all of them at once.

All of these things are potential possible forms of limitations for mechs in design and usage.  So the question is what part make sense to implement, and which can be simplified or best left more general?

  It just hit me, if the ship is actually designed to be an integral part of the party gaining as the party does levels.  I noted someone asking about a party member having a separate small fighter.  If a Character had a personal Mecha or Fighter/recon not as "equipment" but "character growth".
   Like the ship is to the party some part of party BP going to growth of the mecha or fighter.

  This made me think while I can see Mecha using their power-plant to fly, travel in system, and even MAYBE take to the air in ground combat. How would the small fighter or mecha, travel with the party ship.  What if the ship could replace one "turret" or weapon system placement with a custom carry rack for the "personal Vehicle" that allows use of the "vehicles" main weapon by the ships gunner, physical access by the owner to launch, when launched uncovering a smaller weapon, for ship defence.

  These custom racks might be be a weak point for enemy ship boarding, an air lock but I might rule it only works as an air lock when the particular make and model of auxillary craft the player owns is docked there.

   This could lead to a ship that is little more then a Mecha Squad carrier.  I would suggest the unless a group of powerplants are warmed up together or you have plenty of sync time using mech plants to add power the ship may be a bad [dangerous to ship] idea unless in emergency combat conditions.  But if that is the character of the party I could see a game of mercenary Mecha-jockys with their Recon rack-ship and Pilot/science officer [the player of the pilot allows longer range "LOS"] and ship artillary support?.

An idea to make Mecha less over powering to an un-mech'd party is that they must go into combat as if they were bigger then they are their hex for multi mecha close order combat being actually three or more hexes wide.  and regular even farther to avoid stepping on one another's feet so to speak.
avoiding expanding critical failures, beyond 1, and limiting such failures to personal mech issues not damage to party members.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:43, Mon 18 Sept 2017.

Don't know if you heard, but they are in early stages of preparing for Starfinder Second edition which will be utilizing the same core rules that Pathfinder Second Edition (remastered) as its rules framework.  However, certain things such as flying and other meta assumptions about aspects of the game may be different than Pathfinder.

Flying was given as the first example of such a change.  In pathfinder, PC races aren't typically given flight, due do the ability being able to short circuit a variety of low level challenges expected in Pathfinder.  Starfinder, this will not remain the case, and as given the example, everyone will be presumed to be able to have a useful ranged backup weapon, so flight will be something that will be available to low level PC ancestries at early levels.

So the Rules framework; such as three action, 4-degrees of success, attributes, save, feats, classes, ancestries, etc. will all remain the core.  However, the details of what is assumed at various levels may be quite different.

In reply to Karthaw Nar (msg # 11):
That sounds interesting;

They have had three Pre-Playtest reveals/previews, including: Two Classes, Two Ancestries, Weapons, Spells and Creatures.

Class:
Soldier
Mystic

Ancestries:
 Android
 Vesk

Weapons:
 Laser Pistol(s)
 Scattergun(s)
 Rotolaser(s)
 Stellar Cannon(s)
Note:(s) represent each version has multiple tier's of the particular weapon.

Spells:
Cantrips
 Analyze Target
 Recharge Weapon
 Reorient
1st Rank
 Delete
 Motivating Ringtone
 Sonic Scream
 Wisp Ally
2nd Rank
 Doom Scroll
 Soul Surge
3rd Rank
 Discharge
 Gravity Tether

Focus Spells
 SONG OF THE SPHERES
 VITALIZE
 WILD BOND

Creatures:
 Computer Glitch Gremlin
 Laser Wolf (Tashtari)

hummm..
Tech

They have added the Envoy class.

It is somewhat bard-like but yet different.

Some people are clamoring about wanting to use it in Pathfinder.  I worry a little bit that there will be too much focus on making Starfinder classes be out of the box fully compatible with Pathfinder that they cease to be actually compatible with the Starfinder settings as it was.  But we will see, and there is a lot to it that sounds pretty interesting and full of potential.

There is a conversation on their boards about the 'humanoid assumption' I think was the words used.  And I agree a lot with the concerns.  Much of pathfinder assumes two hands, two feet, head, etc. Things that don't fit that are rare exceptions, and frequently have rules that make them be masked as if they did, but with a little tweak.  I'm hoping that doesn't happen to the Starfinder Ancestries, because a cantina with full of a bunch of aliens that are humans wearing various masks, really isn't an Alien Cantina to me.

My hope is that Starfinder Ancestries have a wider more varied budget to work from from the start.  We know they are supposed to support flight from the start, but we don't know exactly how, nor what other things will become viable.  Multi-handedness is a bit question on how they are going to handle it.