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Developing to Spec: Part 12b – Adapting Concepts
This is the second section of Part Twelve of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written, and I have time over the holidays to update the list) here.
We’ve reached Defensive Combat Training, which has the same kind of problems with game math and combat options as Greater Weapon Focus and, like it, there’s a way to preserve the concept by having it apply to avoiding penalties rather than gaining bonuses.
DEFENSIVE COMBAT TRAINING (Combat)
You have trained to keep your defenses us against tricky maneuvers, even under the worst circumstances
Benefit: You do not apply the penalty from the entangled, exhausted, fatigued, flat-footed, frightened, grappled, off-kilter, panicked, or prone conditions to your AC against combat maneuvers.
Deflect Arrows clearly got superseded by Deflect Projectiles, but we can possibly use the fact that the Starfinder version has extremely broad utility, late-level prerequisites, and a Resolve Point cost to make a much narrower, but less costly version just for “arrows.”
DEFLECT ARROWS (Combat)
You have trained in an archaic art designed to avoid archaic missile weapons.
Benefit: Once per round when an archaic ranged weapon that does kinetic damage would hit you, you may choose to have it miss you.
PATREON
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Developing to Spec: Part 12 – Deadly and Deceitful
This is the first section of Part Twelve of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written, and I have time over the holidays to update the list) here.
So now that we’ve done Greater Weapon Focus and Shatter Defenses, we can look at Deadly Stroke. The PF version is specifically designed to give you a kind of quick coup de grace option, but that doesn’t hold up well to Starfinder’s combat math. On the other hand, Starfinder does assume that if you have an attack bonus to high you can hit even while taking the penalty for multiattacking, you can do more damage (or significantly inconvenience them with a combat maneuver). There might be ways to allow that high-attack-bonus character to just access more damage directly if they pay a feat to do so.
And since Starfinder feats tend to be much more prerequisite-lite than PF, and the base attack bonus restricts this to higher-level characters anyway, we can do away with some of the prerequisites that aren’t directly related to the way this feat works.
DEADLY STROKE
With a well-placed strike, you can bring a swift and painful end to most foes.
Prerequisites: Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Focus, and proficiency with the selected weapon, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: When using a weapon you have Greater Weapon Focus with to make a single attack as a standard action, if your attack roll exceeds the target’s AC by 8 or more, the attack is a critical hit.
And that brings us to Deceitful, which has all the issues of Athletic and Acrobatic and similar feats. Luckily we can use the same solution—look through the relevant feats and seek some design space open for new options.
DECEITFUL
The art of deception is second-nature to you.
Benefit: You can use the diversion task of the Bluff skill to allow another character to use the distraction to attempt Stealth or to palm an object. If your skill check is 20 or higher, you can pass a secret message to the character you are making the distraction for informing them of your intention in creating the distraction, and no one who is distracted can attempt a Sense Motive check to learn the gist of that message.
Additionally, the DC of a Perception check to penetrate a successful disguise of yours is increased by +2.
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Developing to Spec: Part 11d – Design Tricks
This is the second section of Part Eleven of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
So, Deadly Stroke is our next feat in the alphabetical list of things to convert from PF to Starfinder, but it has as prerequisites Greater Weapon Focus and Shatter Defenses, two PF feats that aren’t in Starfinder, and that are on our list to convert, but that we haven’t converted yet. So, it makes more sense to do those feats first, and then come back for Deadly Stroke.
So, Greater Weapon Focus has the same issue as Combat Expertise and Deadly Aim — it’s a PF feat build off a different mathematical assumption than Starfinder’ combat uses. On the other hand, it’s hard to see how to turn Greater Weapon Focus into anything more than bonuses to hit targets… it just doesn’t do anything else, and not much else is thematically appropriate.
But there is a trick up my designer’s sleeve. It’s not perfect, but when we HAVE to convert something like this, and we CAN’T just give bonuses without breaking the game, sometimes we can reduce penalties instead.
Reducing penalties doesn’t change a character’s maximum attack value, so they aren’t just more effective all the time, but it does allow them to retain more accuracy when they normally would lose it. It keeps the character within the range of expected numbers for Starfinder combat, while still allowing them to be better than expected in specific circumstances. Since Starfinder allows you to take penatlies to make multiple attacks (and this is almost always more effective in terms of total damage-per-round) we don’t want to just allow a character to reduce all penalties, since that could be used to almost always make a more effective damage-per-round choice than the normal maximum. Luckily for us there is another source of well-defined penalties in Starfinder–conditions.
GREATER WEAPON FOCUS (Combat)
You have become a master of a particular weapon type.
Prerequisites: Proficiency and Weapons Focus with selected weapon type, base attack bonus +8.
Benefit: Chose one weapon type (small arms, longarms, heavy weapons, etc.) with which you have Weapon Focus. When making attacks with these weapons, you ignore penalties to attack rolls from the entangled, exhausted, fatigued, frightened, off-target, and shaken conditions.
That should appeal to weapon-focused characters with lots of feats to spare (such as soldier). If we weren’t specifically converting these to Starfinder feats it might be worth making this a soldier gear boost, but it’s not unbalanced to let any character take it, so we’ll leave it alone.
That brings us to Shatter Defenses. It works fine as-is (though we should note flat-footed is a condition). It does overlap with an operative’s trick-attack a bit, but we can incorporate off-kilter as an additional effect if the target is or becomes flat-footed, so an operative working with a character that has this feat still sees synergy in their attacks (another design trick for when rules have PC abilities overlapping).
SHATTER DEFENSES (Combat)
Your skill with your chosen weapon leaves opponents unable to defend themselves if you strike them when their defenses are already compromised.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus, Dazzling Display, base attack bonus +6, proficiency with weapon.
Benefit: Any shaken, frightened, or panicked opponent hit by you this round gains the flat-footed condition until the end of your next turn. If the target is already flat-footed, or becomes flat-footed during that duration, it is off-kilter during this time instead. (Targets are off-kilter even if not in 0-G, but may automatically right themselves with a move action if this is the case).
So NEXT week, we can go back and pick up Deadly Stroke!
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Developing to Spec: Part 11c – Design Traps
This is the second section of Part Eleven of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
Our next feat is Dazzling Display, which can again work exactly as written in Starfinder, but again isn’t in Starfinder. We need to ask ourselves why, and that means we need to examine how demoralize is sued in Starfinder. So, it’s useful to do a search through a complete Starfidner SRD for “demoralize” to see all the ways that task is used in various other abilities. This is important because, for example, we find in AP #12 there’s the Improved Demoralize feat, which lets you demoralize as a move action. That’s actually extremely powerful, and it cuts a lot of design space off for Dazzling Display.
We also discover the envoy class has the expertise talent “menacing gaze,” which allows you to demoralize a group of foes, which is the core concept behind Dazzling Display. And soldiers have shock and awe as a fighting style, which lets you burn Resolve to demoralize all foes within 60 feet. So, we can’t duplicate those effect without stealing some of the special abilities for those classes, and we can’t allow you to do it more quickly without overwriting Improved Demoralize. (I checked all the references for game uses of demoralize of course, from star knights to the ferocity blazon, these are just the most relevant issues.)
But what we don’t find is a demoralize critical hit effect. And that gives us some design space.
DAZZLING DISPLAY (Combat)
Your most spectacular attacks are frightful to behold.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus
Benefit: You can add the demoralize critical hit effect to any attack you make that is a critical hit. The effect allows you to immediately make an Intimidate check to demoralize your target and all foes within 30 feet of your target. If your base attack bonus is greater than your Intimidate bonus, you may use it for the demoralize check. You may add this critical hit effect in addition to any other critical hit effect or effects the attack can normally benefit from. This critical hit effect applies to creature immune to critical hits and is not negated by things which negate critical hit effects, but does not apply to creatures immune to mind-affecting effects. This is a emotion, fear effect.
Moving on to Deadly Aim, we see it has the same issues as Combat Expertise in how it interacts with Starfinder’s combat math. Looking at some solutions, we see sniper rifles have some special rules, which maybe we can co-opt to match the flavor of Deadly Aim, without breaking the game’s math (though it also won’t be as broadly useful a feat, which is fine as long as it has good utility for the characters most likely to take it).
DEADLY AIM (Combat)
When you take time to aim, your accuracy is exceptional.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with sniper weapons.
Benefit: You can take a move action to aim with a ranged weapon as if it had the sniper weapon special property. This allows you to treat it’s range increment as being 50% longer. If you make an attack with a weapon that does have the sniper weapon special property, when you take a move action to aim with it you gain a +1 bonus to the next attack roll you make with it during the same round.
…
Of course the REAL design trap is that Deadly Aim IS already in Starfinder!
Always double check your sources. Otherwise, you might write a feat you don’t need. 🙂
PATREON
Like all my blog posts, this is brought to you by the wonderful patrons of my Patreon! Want more of this content? Want to suggest specific game systems, topics, of kinds of articles? All of that is only possible if people join my Patreon, help me have the free time to write these things, and let me know what you want to see!
Developing to Spec: Part 11b – Matching Mechanics to Flavor
This is the second section of Part Eleven of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
We’re chewing through feats at a good pace now, and running into many fewer that refer to rules that just don’t exist in Starfinder. but we also need to make sure that even if a feat can be adapted directly, we are doing good thematic conversions as well. And that brings us to Combat Expertise and Command Undead.
So, once again, Combat Expertise works as written in Starfinder… which leads to ask why it isn’t IN Starfinder? When so much of Starfinder is clearly based on PF, and so many feats are adapted over, why was this one left behind?
A careful analysis shows the answer is: math.
Starfinder combat math is different from PF, despite so much of the system being built on the same base mechanics. Part of this is because Starfinder replaced iterative attacks with increases in damage as you gain levels. But part of it is because what bonuses are given out are more tightly controlled. We CAN introduce new bonuses on top of those–they game mechanics will still produce results that make sense to players–but doing so begins warping the system in a way that is going to make play results unpredictable.
If we can avoid that, we want to.
But since we know Starfinder has rules for making multiple attacks a -4 to both, and has rules for giving up attacks to gain a +4 bonus to AC, maybe we can create a new option that allows a player to take the same penalties as a full defense and multiple attacks in a round, but still gives them one attack and some movement. It’ll only be useful for corner-case tactics, but it’s also optional. If players can’t figure out a way to make this useful (mostly likely with a high-Dex energy-weapon optimized soldier when facing a horde of lower-CR foes), they just don’t take this feat.
And it’s clearly superior to JUST taking a full defense action, so it has its uses. It’s the kind of thing someone with expertise in combat might take as a 7th or 9th feat. In fact, since not a lot of Int builds are combat focused, let’s just slap a +9 attack bonus onto the prerequisites, to make it clear this isn’t designed for 1st level characters.
COMBAT EXPERTISE (Combat)
You can increase your defense at the expense of your accuracy and mobility.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +9.
Benefit: As a full action you can choose to take a –8 penalty on attack rolls to gain a +4 bonus to your Armor Class and make a single attack. You may choose to take a guarded step as part of this action. You cannot take attacks of opportunity. You cannot combine this with any other action that increases AC. The effects of this feat last until your next turn.
Okay, that brings us to Command Undead. We could just make this a new option off the healing channel connection power, but that means we’re saying healers make the best undead controllers and that feels… wrong. The devastator and shadow mystic connections feel more appropriate, so…
COMMAND UNDEAD
Using foul powers of necromancy, you can command undead creatures, making them into your servants.
Prerequisites: Mystic (devastator or shadow connection) level 5.
Benefit: As a standard action, you can expend one Resolve Point to enslave undead within 30 feet. Undead receive a Will save to negate the effect at your normal connection power DC. Undead that fail their saves fall under your control, obeying your commands to the best of their ability, as if under the effects of control undead. Intelligent undead receive a new saving throw each day to resist your command. As long as you are controlling any of these undead, you cannot recover the Resolve Point used activate this feat. You can control any number of undead, so long as their total levels do not exceed your mystic level. If an undead creature is under the control of another creature, you must make an opposed Charisma check whenever your orders conflict.
PATREON
Like all my blog posts, this is brought to you by the wonderful patrons of my Patreon! I’m happy to do this kind of Practical TTRPG Designer masterclass free to the public… but it’s only possible for me to take the time to do so if people join my Patreon and help me have the free time to write these things!
Developing to Spec: Part 11 – Building Momentum
This is a Part Eleven of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
There often comes a time in any big project where I feel I have gained momentum–most of the big design challenges are settled, I have gotten very familiar with the details of the rulesets involved, and the words just flow more easily. Once I hit this point, it’s time to just maintain a good pace and work on getting the project finished without adding any more complications than I need to, but also make sure I don;t get complacent.
So, the next feat we need to adapt is Catch Off-Guard which… works perfectly in Starfinder. There’s absolutely nothing you HAVE to do to make this feat SF compliant… but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we *should* change. having momentum also means making sure we don’t tear past something without taking a moment to consider the implications of its rules design.
Unarmed opponents are less common in Starfinder, the flat-footed condition is tied into a lot of class builds already, and damage-per-round is calculated using Weapon Specialization and increasing damage dice for higher-level weapons rather than multiple attacks per round. Also, this seems like a feat operatives would want (much as rogues are more interested in the PF version), so we want them to find it more useful.
CATCH OFF-GUARD (Combat)
Foes are surprised by your skilled use of unorthodox and improvised weapons.
Benefit: You do not suffer any penalties for using an improvised melee weapon. You may add half your level to damage dealt with such weapons as a special form of Weapon Specialization (and in place of any other weapon specialization bonus), and treat such weapons as having the operative weapon special property.
Normal: You take a –4 penalty on attack rolls made with an improvised weapon and never add damage from Weapon Specialization.
That brings us to Channel Smite, which again applies to a game mechanic that doesn’t exist in Starfinder. But the Harm Undead feat that allows healing connection mystics to use healing energy to harm undead clearly serves the same function as channel, so we can adapt from there. In this case, there’s no need to build a complex rules subsystem, we just want to make sure the details work well in Starfinder’s game environment.
CHANNEL SMITE (Combat)
You can channel your mystic energy through a melee weapon you wield.
Prerequisite: Harm Undead, healing channel connection power, mystic level 1st.
Benefit: Before you make an attack roll, as part of the same action you can choose to expend your healing channel to add its value to the attack as bonus damage that only applies to undead. The damage applies to any undead hit by the attack. This does not apply to any attack that does not require an attack roll (though it does apply to area attacks that also require attack rolls, such as most grenades). The undead can attempt a Will save to reduce this bonus damage by half, at your usual connection power DC.
It may seem like we’re still at the beginning of this process since we’re still in feats beginning with a C, but given we’ve done all the metamagic feats, all the critical feats, and all the item crafting feats, we’ve actually made major progress towards being done. It may not be the beginning of the end of this project, but we’ve definitely hit the end of the beginning.
PATREON
This series of posts about my specific game writing and development process (along with concrete examples and Starfinder feats) is — like all my blog posts — is only possible if people join my Patreon, help me have the free time to write these things, and let me know what you want to see!
Developing to Spec: Part 10d: Down the Rabbit Hole
This is the fourth section of Part Ten of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
While we were going through the PF core rulebook feats in order, we’ve once again hit a whole category of feats –item creation feats. And I had no plan for handling that. So I came up with what I thought was a clever item creation feat for Brew Potion and Craft Magic Arms and Armor. The I applied it to Craft Rod and Craft Staff, which was weird. Then Craft Wand and Craft Wondrous Items, which was weirder. Now we just have Forge Ring and Scribe Scroll left.
The further I go down their weird rabbit whole of having Craft Wands make hybrid items, Craft Staff make technological ones, and Craft Rods do augmentation, the more I doubt my choice to do things that way. But I’m already most of the way down the rabbit hole, so I’m going to tackle the last two of these feats, and think about how I like the full set as I move on with other feats next week.
FORGE RING
You’ve mastered the nearly lost art of magic ring forging, and can aply it to creating similarly useful objects of magical power.
Prerequisites: Mysticism 7 ranks.
Benefit: This feat interacts with magic items that do not use charges (see the rules on Charges in the Magic Item section of the Equipment Chapter of the Starfinder Core Rulebook). Over the course of ten minutes you can break down a number of such magic items with a total item level no greater than your character level. You receive half these item’s credit value in UPBs.
Additionally with one hour of work, you can turn UPBs into a number of such magic items up to a total of item levels no greater than your character level. None of these items may have an item level greater than your character level.
Using this feat for either function requires you have access to an arcane laboratory. Alternatively you can do this with nothing more than the UPBs and a relatively quite space to work in, but when you do so you are limited to objects with an item level at least 2 below your character level.
SCRIBE SCROLL
You are adept at taking magic energy and freezing it time, a process that was once done using ink and parchment, and now generally involves spell gems.
Prerequisites: Mysticism 1 rank.
Benefit: This feat interacts with magic items that have charges that never refresh (see the rules on Charges in the Magic Item section of the Equipment Chapter of the Starfinder Core Rulebook), except serums and spell ampules which fall under Brew Potion). Over the course of ten minutes you can break down a number of such magic items with a total item level no greater than your character level. You receive half these item’s credit value in UPBs.
Additionally with one hour of work, you can turn UPBs into a number of such magic items up to a total of item levels no greater than your character level. None of these items may have an item level greater than your character level.
Using this feat for either function requires you have access to an arcane laboratory. Alternatively you can do this with nothing more than the UPBs and a relatively quite space to work in, but when you do so you are limited to objects with an item level at least 2 below your character level.
PATREON
Like all my blog posts, this is brought to you by the wonderful patrons of my Patreon! I’m happy to do this kind of Practical TTRPG Designer masterclass free to the public… but it’s only possible for me to take the time to do so if people join my Patreon and help me have the free time to write these things!
Developing to Spec: Part 10b: When The Easy Answer Is WEIRD
This is the second section of Part Ten of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
While we were going through the PF core rulebook feats in order, we’ve once again hit a whole category of feats –item creation feats. And I had no plan for handling that. So I came up with what I thought was a clever item creation feat for Brew Potion and Craft Magic Arms and Armor, and I can see how it’ll work well for Scribe Scroll and Craft Wondrous Item. Those are all well and good. Even Forge Ring is probably going to be okay.
But the NEXT feat I need to convert is Craft Rod. And there are Craft Staff and Craft Wand lurking out there, as well. So we need to get creative.
Looking at the types of equipment in Starfinder, I can map Scribe Scroll to spell gems, which serve the same function. I can map Forge Ring to magic rings, and Craft Wondrous Item to other classes of magic items. That still leaves augmentations, computers, technological items, hybrid items, vehicles, other purchases, and (if I got desperate) starships.
I’m going to discard computers, vehicles, and starships from the craft system immediately. Even ignoring how much those don’t feel like magic crafted items, the idea of letting someone make a computer in 10 minutes, which could then grant access to skills for example, seems clearly adventure-breaking.
I can see using Craft Staff for technological items (playing up that staves were, technically, weapons as well as magic items). Using Craft Wand for hybrid items is a stretch… but maybe I can find a way to have it make sense with the flavor text. That leaves me augmentations for Craft Rod, which again feels weird, but it IS a good game mechanical match.
This, by the way, is the point in a design process where if I was working in an office with other people employed by the same company, I’d lean over to whoever was next to me (for Starfinder, that was usually Rob McCreary or Joe Pasini), and ask them if this idea was TOO weird. failing that, if I had a developer or publisher to run it by, I’d ask for their input.
But since I am doing this project as a solo freelancer, I am on my own. It feels like it might be too weird… but it also works, so I’ll give it a go and see how I feel after the project is done. This is one of the things that can happen when you run into a major design challenge without having a solid plan to handle it, and just bull forward with the first thing that seems workable. (This is also one of the reasons a lot of game companies have developers — just because I decide this weird answer is okay doesn’t mean a publisher will agree with me. Developers help keep a game line;s tone consistent.)
CRAFT ROD
You have mastered the ancient art of using magic and sliding, interconnected rods and gears to make functioning, complex machines to accomplish specific tasks.
Prerequisites: Life Science 9 ranks, Physical Science 9 ranks.
Benefit: Over the course of ten minutes you can break down a number of unimplanted augmentations with a total item level no greater than your character level. You receive half these item’s credit value in UPBs.
Additionally with one hour of work, you can turn UPBs into a number of augmentations up to a total of item levels no greater than your character level. None of these items may have an item level greater than your character level. They may be unimplanted, or you may create them automatically implanted in a willing target that is able to have an augmentation added to the appropriate system.
Using this feat for either function requires you have access to an arcane laboratory or medical bay. Alternatively you can do this with a medkit, but are limited to augmentations with an item level at least 2 below your character level.
CRAFT STAFF
You have mastered centuries of philosophy and techniques on using magic to create technological items. Though this ancient art began with just staffs, you can use it to produce the vast array of technology you are familiar with.
Prerequisites: Engineering 11 ranks, Physical Science 11 ranks.
Benefit: Over the course of ten minutes you can break down a number of technological items with a total item level no greater than your character level. You receive half these item’s credit value in UPBs.
Additionally with one hour of work, you can turn UPBs into a number of technological items up to a total of item levels no greater than your character level. None of these items may have an item level greater than your character level.
Using this feat for either function requires you have access to an tech workshop or vehicle bay. Alternatively you can do this with an appropriate toolkit, but are limited to objects with an item level at least 2 below your character level.
Yep, those are weird. But, at least right now, they also feel cool to me.
I’m keeping them for now, and moving on with this project!
PATREON
Like all my blog posts, this is brought to you by the wonderful patrons of my Patreon! Want more of this content? Want to suggest specific game systems, topics, of kinds of articles? All of that is only possible if people join my Patreon, help me have the free time to write these things, and let me know what you want to see!
Developing to Spec: Part 10: When You Have No Plan
This is a Part Ten of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
While we were going through the PF core rulebook feats in order, we’ve once again hit a whole category of feats –item creation feats, beginning with Brew Potion–that play on game mechanics from PF that just don’t exist in Starfinder.
And, confession time, I have no plan for these.
I’ve known they were coming, in vague terms, since I began this project. And I’ve know they were the next thing to be tackled since last week, when I discovered I’d skipped a few things when I diverged from alphabetical order to tackle critical feats. So I have had lots of time to casually ponder this design issue. That often brings a number of ideas for how to work around some tricky bit of game design.
This time? Nothing.
Obviously I COULD just say I’ll do them later, and give myself more time. In some ways, that’d be the smart thing to do. But I want these articles to show how I tackle tricky development and design issues, so let’s pretend I don’t have any more time. I am on deadline. The project lead insists these be done, and I am out of time. So, since nothing else has sparked a good idea, it’s time to take an extreme measure.
It’s time to read messageboards.
I try to avoid this as a way to look for inspiration on specific questions, though I often do read game boards to get a feel for what players of a given game are thinking. But I am aware messageboards are not representative of all of a game’s players, and they can often have toxic elements I’d rather not dwell in. On top of that, when I am stumped on an issue I need to be careful not to plagiarize ideas I run into. Looking for inspiration is fine–taking someone else’s actual work and passing it off as my own isn’t.
So, reading through some Starfinder messagebaords today (there’s a reason this article got pasted so late in the day), I find the following common complaints about item creation in Starfinder.
It takes too long.
It doesn’t save you any money.
You have to have a big chunk of your wealth locked into UPBs instead of gear if you want to be able to craft while far from civilization.
Now I’m not going to play with costs at all. Equipment economy in -finder games is highly tuned for a reason, and adjusting it can lead to imbalances quickly, But there may be some room for solutions in the other issues.
BREW POTION
You have mastered ancient alchemical and magical arts of potable and potent liquids.
Prerequisites: Life Science 3 ranks, Medicine 3 ranks.
Benefit: Over the course of ten minutes you can break down a number of posions, medicinals, spell ampules, and serums with a total item level no greater than your character level. You receive half these item’s credit value in UPBs.
Additionally with one hour of work, you can turn UPBs into a number of poisons, medicinals, spell ampules, and serums up to a total of item levels no greater than your character level. None of these items may have an item level greater than your character level.
Using this feat for either function requires you have access to an arcane laboratory, medical bay, or synthesis bay. Alternatively you can do this with an advanced medkit or chemalyzer, but are limited to objects with an item level at least 2 below your character level.
…
Okay… that seems like a usable feat! It’s focused, but it fixes some of the problems people have with crafting. And it’s optional after all — if a player doesn’t think it’s worth it for them, they don’t have to take it.
Can we do the same with Craft Magic Arms and Armor?
CRAFT MAGIC ARMS AND ARMOR
You have mastered ancient magical techniques to create and adjust armor and weaponry.
Prerequisites: Engineering 5 ranks, Physical Science 5 ranks.
Benefit: Over the course of ten minutes you can break down a number of weapons, suits of armor, shields, or fusion seals with a total item level no greater than your character level. You receive half these item’s credit value in UPBs.
Additionally with one hour of work, you can turn UPBs into a number of weapons, suits of armor, shields, and fusion seals up to a total of item levels no greater than your character level. None of these items may have an item level greater than your character level.
Using this feat for either function requires you have access to an arcane laboratory, hangar bay, or tech workshop. Alternatively you can do this with an appropriate toolkit, but are limited to objects with an item level at least 2 below your character level.
Well, it sure is a feat. We’ll see if this concept survives going through all the item creation feats!
PATREON
This series of posts about my specific game writing and development process (along with concrete examples and Starfinder feats) is — like all my blog posts — is only possible if people join my Patreon, help me have the free time to write these things, and let me know what you want to see!
Developing to Spec: Part 9 (d) — My Mistakes Create A Teaching Moment
This is a continuation of Part Nine of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints. You can read long as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.
While we were going through the PF core rulebook feats in order, we’ve hit a whole class of feats that play on rules that don’t exist in Starfinder — metamagic feats. Having developed a plan for converting those (and wanting to stay consistent with our development), it seems smart to tackle all the rest of the metamagic feats before we move on to the next in alphabetical order.
So, that brings us to Widen Spell. …. And Empower Spell and Enlarge Spell.
Wait, what? Shouldn’t those have been before Extend Spell, which we did in the first section of Part Nine?
Yes. Yes, they should have.
But when I did all the critical feats we got out of order, and instead of hopping back to Brew Potion (which would have sent us down a rabbit whole doing crafting feats this week), I somehow skipped ahead to Exotic Weapon Proficiency. I only caught the mistake earlier this week, when double checking I could get all the metamagic feats done by today, to move on to a new topic next week.
Now this isn’t a big deal. I can write these things in any order, so going back to Brew Potion next week is fine. But if I hadn’t double checked, I might have missed those skipped-over feats entirely. For purposes of a series of blog posts, that’s fine. But if this was actually a project I was developing for another publisher? A chunk of missing content would be a major failure on my part.
So, teaching moment. If your assignment is supposed to cover a specific list of items? Check from time to time, including when you think you are done, that you have covered all of them. And if you missed some? Fix it.
So, we’ll do three more metamagic feats today to get that line of design done, then hop to Brew Potion and crafting feats next week.
Since it’s always worthwhile to do things in alphabetical order unless you have a pressing reason not to, let’s look at Empower Spell. It has a lot of the same issues as Maximize Spell, so maybe we can use the same kind of solution. However, since it doesn’t add as much damage, we need it to be a smaller risk, and apply to a wider range of spells.
EMPOWER SPELL
You can get more effect out of your lower-level spells.
Prerequisites: Able to cast a spell at least 2 spell levels higher than your lowest-level spell.
Benefit: When you cast a spell with a casting time of 1 standard action, that is at least 2 spell levels lower than the highest-level spell you can cast, you may cast it with a casting time of 1 full action. The sp or hp damage done by the spell is increased by +50%.
That applies to a slightly higher level of spell, and takes a full action rather than 1 round. The payoff is much lower, but I could legitimately see a spellcaster wanting both these feats, and while they won’t work with each other (intentionally), they will stack with technomancer magic hacks.
Then it’s Enlarge Spell, which looks like it’ll work much like Extend Spell did.
ENLARGE SPELL
Your spells often have much greater reach than most spellcasters’.
Prerequisites: Ability to cast a spell with a range based on level.
Benefit: When calculating the range of your spells, treat your caster level as being +4 levels higher.
Aaaand that brings us to Widen Spell. Starfinder doesn’t normally have areas based on level, but they do often have targets limited per level, so we can use that with the Enlarge/Extend paradigm.
WIDEN SPELL
Your spells often affect many more targets than most spellcasters’.
Prerequisites: Ability to cast a spell with a maximum number of targets based on level.
Benefit: When calculating the maximum number of targets of your spells, treat your caster level as being +4 levels higher.
PATREON
This series of posts about my specific game writing and development process (along with concrete examples and Starfinder feats) is — like all my blog posts — is only possible if people join my Patreon, help me have the free time to write these things, and let me know what you want to see!
