Starfinder Core Rulebook [RPG]

It’s been exactly one year since the Starfinder Core Rulebook was released. After playing the game steadily since then, the timing seems auspicious to do a full review.  Having read it cover to cover, I’ll be doing my usual chapter-by-chapter breakdown, but since this is a big book (13 chapters and 524 pages) I can’t be quite as prolix as usual. 

Before getting into the content, I have to draw attention to the art and design of the book—it’s simply gorgeous.  Paizo is the best in the business when it comes to integrating cool, “on-theme” artwork into their books, and the design of the book is clever and user-friendly, with a running border on the “right-hand” side so you instantly know what chapter you’re in, highlighted tabs at the bottom to tell you what you what section of that chapter you’re in, colourful sidebars and symbols to replace walls of text, and more.  I don’t what the art and layout budget for it was, but it must have taken the best work of some very talented people to achieve such results.

Chapter 1 (Overview) is the shortest chapter, and it gives you the sort of thing most gaming books do: an explanation of what a role-playing game is, a quick glossary, an example of play, etc.  When you’ve read a couple of these introductions to RPGs, you’ve read them all, but for people who have never gamed before, I imagine they’re pretty important.  The example of play was pretty entertaining, and I found myself disappointed when it was over—odd!

Chapter 2 (Character Creation) walks you step-by-step through the process of creating a player character.  It’s written in a very clear, straightforward way, and I know the developers spent a lot of time testing the chapter out on people unfamiliar with tabletop RPGs.  This chapter is crucial, as it details important game concepts like Stamina and Hit Points (two different “pools” representing health; I don’t really think the distinction is worthwhile), Resolve Points (a pool of points allowing you to activate special abilities or stabilize if you run out of health), and Themes, which are sort of like background character concepts (“Bounty Hunter” and “Icon” are examples); they provide some minor mechanical bonuses, but frankly they’re not really going to change what a character can do and are more for flavour.  Alignment is also covered in this chapter, but Starfinder is so wishy-washy on it, and it’s implemented in so few parts of the game, that it could be safely jettisoned entirely.

Chapter 3 (Races) introduces the seven core races of the game:  Androids, Humans, Kasathas (four-armed traditionalists), Lashuntas (natural psychics), Shirrens (humanoid bug-like creatures), Vesk (Klingons in disguise), and Ysoki (ratfolk).  I really like how attractively the two-page spread for each race is laid out, with male and female examples, highlighted special features, and other useful sections like homeworlds, role-playing tips, and how other races might view your own.  None strike me as amazingly original, but they’re all solid and well-integrated with the setting lore of the game.

Chapter 4 (Classes) sets out the seven core classes: Envoys (diplomats and leaders), Mechanics (techies), Mystics (clerics), Operatives (spies and rogues), Solarians (a sort of Jedi), Soldiers (beatsticks), and Technomancers (magic/tech crossover specialists).  A nice thing is that for each class, four build examples are given to help new players figure out what direction they want to take the character—so for Envoy, for example, builds are included for an Ambassador, a Military Officer, a Negotiator, and a Scoundrel.  I only have space for a quick line about my impression of each class:  1) Envoys are great characters when it comes to teamwork, but it’s weird that their list of special ability (“Improvisations”) stops at level six; 2) Mechanics are loaded with several cool features, and are a fairly complex class to play with two main options (an integrated AI or a drone companion); 3) Mystic is a good, broad interpretation of a cleric from Pathfinder, but much easier to play (the Healer Connection might be too good compared to alternatives); 4) Operatives are the best at anything if they want to be, second-best in the group if they don’t even try—in other words, overpowered with too many skill ranks and bonuses, plus a special ability (trick attack) that has them rolling to resolve something before every single time they attack—it’s annoying in play; 5) Solarian is the most original class, with some really interesting lore involving connections to super novae and black holes that are well-integrated into their gameplay mechanics; 6) Soldiers are mostly what one would expect, with “Fighting Styles” the main distinguishing feature; 7) Technomancer is a cool concept, a class with spells plus “Magic Hacks” that do interesting things to technology.  There are a lot of options within each class, they’re flavourful, and (with the exception of the Operative) they seem reasonably balanced with each other.  I almost forgot about Archetypes—that’s because they’re completely forgettable (the book comes with two, a Phrenic Adept and a Starfinder Forerunner, but both require a PC to give up so many of their core class features that they’re unlikely to be worth it).

Chapter 5 (Skills) has the same basic system for skills as Pathfinder, but with far fewer to choose from: only twenty.  But with every class getting at least 4+Int in skill points, it’s pretty easy to stay maxed out on the most important ones in the game.  Indeed, some classes (looking at you, Operatives) get so many skill points that they can be good at almost everything.  Designing skill lists must be a tough task in RPGs, as there are inevitably some that are going to come up nearly every session (like Computers) and some only rarely (like Swim).  Some skills are too broad (like Culture, which apparently allows one to be an expert on every planet in the universe) and others are too narrow (like Disguise, which won’t let you disguise yourself as a specific person).  There’s also still a lot of number-crunching involved in selecting the appropriate DC within each skill, so this is not a fast “rules-light” system.  All in all, I would say it’s okay, but not a great leap forward from D&D 3.0 or Pathfinder.

Chapter 6 (Feats) has a lot of good, original ideas, some of which take real advantage of the setting like Amplified Glitch.  There’s just over 100 feats in total, which seems like a lot, but many are, of course, really only useful for certain classes or builds, so I don’t think choice paralysis is going to be a problem yet.  The interior artwork continues to be excellent in this chapter.

Chapter 7 (Equipment) clearly had a lot of design work put into it, as it’s far more integral to the game than mundane equipment was in Pathfinder.  Every piece of equipment has a level attached to it, representing how easy or hard it is for a character to get a hold of it (with higher level pieces of equipment being better, of course).  It’s more reminiscent of a video game, but I think it works in context as an abstraction of things like licensing and black market connections, etc.  I really like some of the special properties and critical hit effects that weapons have, though I wish the tables would have been divided by level instead of weapon type.  There’s some problems I could go into here (such as how annoying batteries are, or how fusions and fusion seals are each good ideas standing alone, but having both doesn’t make sense), but I’ll generally just say that encumbrance has been simplified (for better or ill), there’s a lot of design space for future books, and the problem of every character having a billion magic items has been solved in a way that (to me) is satisfactory.  The way equipment is purchased, upgraded, and sold has had a surprisingly large impact on Starfinder gameplay, so this chapter shouldn’t be skipped over when thinking about the game.

Chapter 8 (Tactical Rules) is probably the most important chapter of the book, as it covers combat.  The Pathfinder chassis is used here, with some minor differences such as only two types of armor class (EAC and KAC) and thankfully simplified combat maneuvers.  Oddly, the dying and death rules are much *more* complicated, and I wish they had stuck with the intuitive negative hp concept (it’s pretty hard to die in Starfinder!).  For the most part though, things are laid out clearly and carefully; it’s obvious the writers have learned a lot from their experience with ten years of Pathfinder.  There’s also a section on vehicles, a part of the book that I must confess I’ve never used in actual play.  It looks okay at first glance, though the speed of vehicles means they will be very hard to integrate with “on-foot” combat.  The vehicle chase rules sound interesting, but it’s a whole new subsystem to learn and that’s a lot to ask for something that probably won’t come up too often.

Chapter 9 (Starships) goes through the very cool origin of the Drift (a hyperspace-like realm allowing faster than light travel), discusses how starships are built and modified from a gameplay perspective, and then introduces the important topic of starship combat.  I really *want* to like starship combat in Starfinder (I loved it in the Star Wars RPGs, for example), but after some trials I’ve just found it too slow-paced and unsatisfying.  It’s really almost a separate little board game in which the PCs aboard the ship don’t have much to do besides roll one d20 each round, and if the gunner(s) miss, the rest of the round doesn’t matter.  Ships have too many hit points, weapons do too little damage, and shields are too easy to restore, which means that battles are often a “plink-plink” slog.  Further, there’s no way to have cool things happen like starfighters strafing ground targets or being driven off by anti-aircraft, fire, etc.  Starship combat and ground combat must never mix in Starfinder, and the missed opportunity is a shame.

Chapter 10 (Magic and Spells) has a lot to like.  All spellcasting is spontaneous, there’s no material components, spellcasters only have access to spells of levels 1-6, and the different types of magic (arcane, divine, psychic, etc.) have all been reduced to simply “magic.”  Although I haven’t played at very high levels yet, I’m fairly certain we’ll see a lot less of the caster-martial disparity that plagued Pathfinder.  In terms of the actual spells, I would say that perhaps three-quarters are familiar from Pathfinder, which is a bit too high a proportion.  Some of the new ones are really fun, like “Battle Junkbot,”, “Crush Skull,” “Gravitational Singularity” (make a black hole!), and “Supercharge Weapon.”

Chapter 11 (Game Mastering) contains the standard rules and advice from Pathfinder on topics like experience points, wealth by level, challenge ratings, designing encounters, etc.  The system hasn’t really changed much.  The chapter contains some other sections as well, such as traps (which tend to be pretty nasty in Starfinder), environmental hazards (which, in a game with so much potential for dangerous environments, are negated 99% of the time by the environmental seals that come with *every* suit of armor), afflictions like diseases and poisons (which follow a very different set of rules and are quite deadly), and more.  It’s probably worth mentioning that there aren’t stat blocks for monsters or enemies in this book, and GMs will need to pick up the Alien Archive for that purpose.

Chapter 12 (Setting) is another crucial chapter.  I think it has a really solid backstory and set-up, introducing key concepts like the Gap (a period of time in which all records have been erased and memories lost), Lost Golarion (an entire planet missing!), the the Pact Worlds (the solar system of allied planets that is the “home” of the PCs), and more.  The chapter presents two pages on each of the planets of the Pact Worlds, including some beautiful, evocative artwork.  The planets offer worlds (pun!) of adventure, with everything from a planet ruled by the undead, a creepy Cthulesque planet, a John Carter of Mars-type planet, etc.  GMs will have a lot to work with here.  There’s also a section called “Beyond the Pact Worlds” that’s one of my favourite sections of the book, presenting so many awesome adventure hooks and campaign premises that I’d love to have time to use.  Several pages are devoted to various factions, organisations, and faiths, and again this is very well-done.  I know it’s controversial in some quarters, but I think integrating mechanics with a setting is a good choice.

Chapter 13 (Pathfinder Legacy) is surprisingly detailed.  I remember when Starfinder was announced how much attention Paizo gave to making sure it was backwards-compatible with Pathfinder, which is somewhat odd since they (secretly) had Pathfinder Second Edition in the works and it has nothing particular compatible with the first edition except the world lore.  Anyway, this section has the rules for “legacy races” (elves, halflings, etc.,) as well as some rough conversion guides for bringing Pathfinder classes into the future.

Last up, unlike some gaming companies, Paizo does not skimp on things like glossaries and indices.  The back matter is very professionally done.

The Starfinder Core Rulebook is an impressive accomplishment.  It deserves the attention and rewards that it has achieved.  There are still some clunky mechanics here and there as a legacy of Pathfinder, but there’s plenty of streamlining as well, and lots to love.  The kitchen-sink science fantasy setting provides something for everyone, even if it doesn’t have a mind-blowing singular vision.  Overall, I’d say if you want a space-themed RPG with enough depth and crunch to support years of gameplay, the Starfinder Core Rulebook is an excellent choice.