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Versimilitude questions for Starfinder (HP and Skills)
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7570967" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>You really have to decide whether you are wanting a game of hard sci-fi or whether you are going more for science fantasy (star wars, star trek, fifth element, etc.) or a more space opera feel.</p><p></p><p>Realistically speaking, you can only have fantasy heroes in an age where defensive technology vastly exceeds offensive technology. That's why two of the great ages of fantasy are the Early Bronze, where we get narratives like the Illiad, and the Medieval. It's only when expensive armor allows a single full-time skilled warrior to take on a dozen or two dozen unarmored foes that you can tell a realistic narrative about a single hero against 'overwhelming odds' and not instead have to tell a war story about sudden and meaningless deaths. If you are doing hard science-fiction, sure, probably heroes get gunned down by machine guns just the same as everyone else, to say nothing of getting blown to bits by 155mm shells. That's why fantasy is typically resistant of allowing firearms into the setting.</p><p></p><p>But, if you are going the space opera route, you can either ignore that problem and do the sort of romantic thing that we in America did with old West gunfights, where we turn them into something fair where mean of heroic skill can face off against great odds and somehow not end up riddled with bullets, or else you can create a conceit of personal defensive technology that recreates an age of fantasy heroes as long as you don't look that close at the physics. Maybe your heroes are all in mechs, or powered body armor, or all have personal force shields that let them shrug off hits from weapons. </p><p></p><p>Or you can go all the way to science fantasy and throw realism out the window at all and have weapons that obey the dictates of plot alone and even introduce magic into the setting under the guise of some other more scientific sounding thing like 'psionics', as for example in 'Star Wars', 'Firefly', 'Mass Effect' or much of 'Star Trek'. That sort of stuff is really popular - much more popular than hard sci-fi - and I reckon that Starfinder would run science fantasy perfectly well. Even relatively hard science fiction like Babylon-5 and The Expanse has science fantasy elements, so its possible to have much of your setting be hard science fiction but appeal to 'sufficiently advanced technology' whenever you want to add some magic to the setting.</p><p></p><p>As for the skills/hit point dichotomies, you can handle that with NPC classes that are highly are entirely non-combatant. No one says that something like a Laborer class needs to have a BAB progression at all, or more than 1d2 hit points per HD/level. Most of the time, that's just demographics anyway, and it rarely comes up in play. But even in my D&D, I tend have the world heavily populated with commoners and experts with 8 CON or less, who even if they are 9th level don't have significant hit points. And has for the breadth of learning, remember that you are doing genera emulation, not realism. What skills do Spock and Captain Kirk have? Pretty much all of them. But if you want starting characters to be less than heroic to start, then by all means bump the DC of everything by 5.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7570967, member: 4937"] You really have to decide whether you are wanting a game of hard sci-fi or whether you are going more for science fantasy (star wars, star trek, fifth element, etc.) or a more space opera feel. Realistically speaking, you can only have fantasy heroes in an age where defensive technology vastly exceeds offensive technology. That's why two of the great ages of fantasy are the Early Bronze, where we get narratives like the Illiad, and the Medieval. It's only when expensive armor allows a single full-time skilled warrior to take on a dozen or two dozen unarmored foes that you can tell a realistic narrative about a single hero against 'overwhelming odds' and not instead have to tell a war story about sudden and meaningless deaths. If you are doing hard science-fiction, sure, probably heroes get gunned down by machine guns just the same as everyone else, to say nothing of getting blown to bits by 155mm shells. That's why fantasy is typically resistant of allowing firearms into the setting. But, if you are going the space opera route, you can either ignore that problem and do the sort of romantic thing that we in America did with old West gunfights, where we turn them into something fair where mean of heroic skill can face off against great odds and somehow not end up riddled with bullets, or else you can create a conceit of personal defensive technology that recreates an age of fantasy heroes as long as you don't look that close at the physics. Maybe your heroes are all in mechs, or powered body armor, or all have personal force shields that let them shrug off hits from weapons. Or you can go all the way to science fantasy and throw realism out the window at all and have weapons that obey the dictates of plot alone and even introduce magic into the setting under the guise of some other more scientific sounding thing like 'psionics', as for example in 'Star Wars', 'Firefly', 'Mass Effect' or much of 'Star Trek'. That sort of stuff is really popular - much more popular than hard sci-fi - and I reckon that Starfinder would run science fantasy perfectly well. Even relatively hard science fiction like Babylon-5 and The Expanse has science fantasy elements, so its possible to have much of your setting be hard science fiction but appeal to 'sufficiently advanced technology' whenever you want to add some magic to the setting. As for the skills/hit point dichotomies, you can handle that with NPC classes that are highly are entirely non-combatant. No one says that something like a Laborer class needs to have a BAB progression at all, or more than 1d2 hit points per HD/level. Most of the time, that's just demographics anyway, and it rarely comes up in play. But even in my D&D, I tend have the world heavily populated with commoners and experts with 8 CON or less, who even if they are 9th level don't have significant hit points. And has for the breadth of learning, remember that you are doing genera emulation, not realism. What skills do Spock and Captain Kirk have? Pretty much all of them. But if you want starting characters to be less than heroic to start, then by all means bump the DC of everything by 5. [/QUOTE]
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