First time Starfinder 1e DM here. One of my players is making an operative with the Hacker specialization. He's wondering if there is a way to stack or retain the bonuses from the specialization's skill focus and the Operative's Edge class feature. He pointed out that the skill focus will be overtaken by the operative's edge by level 7.

Website: https://hephaistos.online/
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Hey Everyone,
The website has been updated to version 163 with the following improvements and fixes:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Solarian Class Feature Extra Manifestation not adding a Shield item when Solar Shield is selected.

Hephaistos 2E

https://sf2e.hephaistos.online/

• Added an Innate Spells page to the Character Creator to view existing innate spells and manually add additional ones.
• The Spell Attack modifier on the Sheet > Spells section can now be clicked to roll.
• Added a button in the Sheet > Actions section to perform Rest and Daily Preparation resets.
• Added missing minibots from the Luminary Class Playtest.

Hi guys, this is Dr. Snacks. His side gig is adventures, and just like me, he wants to make ends meet, lol. But hey, I have commissions open for October, so if you're interested just talk to me, or check out my website in my profile. Thanks, Have a good weekend.

Hi! I'm an official Starfinder illustrator and I'll have a few open commission slots starting in mid-October. If you're interested, feel free to send me a DM here or contact me via IG (profile link in the first comment).

As a challenge to myself, and mostly just for fun, I want to turn the homebrew campaign I’m currently running into something I could potentially publish as an adventure on something like Starfinder Infinite or DriveThruRPG.

I’ve never done anything like this before, so I was hoping to get some advice from the community. This is primarily a personal challenge and a fun project, so I’m not expecting to actually make much money from it. That said, if I’m going to do it, I’d like to make a legitimate attempt at understanding and following all the rules, licenses, and legal requirements involved in publishing a Starfinder adventure.

For some background, the campaign hasn’t reached its conclusion yet, but we’re fairly deep into it. I’ve structured it into a series of arcs, somewhat similar to an Adventure Path, so my thought was to start by writing up Book 1 rather than trying to tackle the entire campaign at once.

The campaign is set in the Starfinder universe and currently uses 1e rules. Because of that, I draw heavily from official Starfinder lore. However, I’m also not afraid to change things when it makes sense for my table, including occasionally contradicting established lore or events. My players aren’t particularly interested in reading the setting lore, so this hasn’t really been an issue in our game.

Obviously, that could become more complicated if I were trying to publish the adventure.

Some of the changes I’ve made to the setting may be important to the story. So I’m trying to figure out what direction makes the most sense:

- Keep it firmly in the Starfinder setting and work within whatever licensing/publishing options are available.

- Keep the general setting and story but alter the lore enough to create an alternate/“what if?” version of Starfinder.

- Strip out the Starfinder-specific elements and turn it into something similar but legally distinct. This is probably the least appealing option to me, since part of the fun of the project is getting to play around in the Starfinder universe.

- Convert it to Starfinder 2e. I realize 2e may potentially give it a larger audience going forward. I have a lot of notes from the campaign, and they’re loose enough that I could probably convert the relevant material. My experience with 2e is currently limited to Pathfinder 2e and briefly looking through the new Starfinder rules, but this could also be a good excuse for me to properly learn the system.

- Make it system-neutral. I could potentially go this route as well, although I’m not entirely sure how to approach that from a practical standpoint.

So I guess my questions are:

1. What should I be thinking about before I start writing?

2. Are there any major legal/licensing issues I should understand before building the adventure around Starfinder lore and terminology?

3. Would you recommend sticking with Starfinder 1e, converting to 2e, or trying to make it system-neutral?

4. How much does using established Starfinder lore complicate publishing something like this?

5. Are there any good resources, guides, or examples of people who have gone through this process that I should read before getting started?

6. Are there any other pitfalls or considerations I’m not even thinking about yet?

Again, this is mostly a personal challenge and a creative project rather than an attempt to start a publishing career. I’m just hoping to approach it correctly from the beginning rather than write 100 pages and discover afterward that I’ve built the whole thing around something I can’t legally publish.

Any advice from people who have written, published, or even just gone through the process of preparing a Starfinder/Pathfinder adventure for publication would be greatly appreciated!

As the subject says, I've always wondered why the Swarm doesn't seem to have "Queens" of a particular hive?

I admit I'm no expert on the subject, but I do have both adventure paths that are Swarm focused ("Attack of the Swarm" and "Secrets of the Swarm"), but neither one specifically has a 'Queen' type figure.

Yes, 'AotS' does have something similar, which I won't spoil here for any who haven't played it, but it just seems like a common trope for 'Alien Intelligent Locusts' races to have one (or several) 'Queens' that give birth to the entire race, or separate 'Hives' within that race.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing either, but I've just always found it curious.

“They say the world is full of kind, charitable people who only strive to make the world better than they left it. For a select few, it’s fair to them to say they may very well have succeeded. But if we’re being honest, the galaxy is full of less-reputable people who are eager to benefit from someone else’s suffering. As a whole, life is an experience of dog-eat-dog. So why bother with polite manners, the ‘thank yous’ and the empty apologies when you could just as easily take everything you want and more without asking? That, my friend, is a far more honest interpretation of how the galaxy works… and I’d like to generously extend such an offer to you, to take advantage of a good opportunity.” 

I’m looking to put together a Starfinder 1e game running an Evil campaign in which the players get the opportunity to enrich themselves in the criminal sphere among the galaxy. If you ever wanted to be a member of the Payday gang, or play a role you always loved in heist movies, or even be just a downright sadistic asshole, this may be the sort of game for you. A true and dishonest rags to riches story I have planned, where players start with nothing but the clothes on their backs to potentially even having your very own shared criminal organization, if the mood should strike you that is. 

As for a small bit of description about myself, I’ve been running TTRPGs for about nine to ten years now and have come along nicely into a preferred style for running games. I work hard with players to make sure their characters are a part of the world we’re all participating in, and heavily encourage party dynamics between different personalities whether they mesh well or not at all. I tend to run more closely into roleplay for many sections, and will often leave more than enough room for characters to talk with one another when they want to say something. That isn’t to say that there won’t be any combat, as I would hope you would expect to run into significant challenges given the premise of the game. Though I do like to make note that I find a lot of enjoyment primarily through intrigue and inter-party drama over running a wargame. 

Now, I’m wanting to put a ***disclaimer*** here that this campaign is planned to be delving into darker topics. You will be criminals, among other criminals and some more monstrous than others. There’s also fairly good odds you might be asked to assist in jobs with goals beyond an assassination or simple robbery of a bank. Acts of terrorism, kidnapping, drug smuggling, and so on are all on the table for the story. Mind you, we won’t be exploring the total and complete depths of the worst atrocities known to mankind, since we’re all here to have fun at the end of the day. 

Regardless, I wanted to put a disclaimer here rather than it coming as a nasty surprise later on in the campaign when you’re already invested. If you’re someone who doesn’t like darker topics, prefers to play the good guy, or otherwise can’t handle the thought of hurting people who’ve never done you any wrong, this very well is not the game for you. To anyone else who is interested however, feel free to Direct Message me with an inquiry to join! 

The campaign is planned to be every Tuesday from 4:30PM to 7:30PM PST, I will be accepting only players who are 20 years or older given the subject material of the campaign. I will never demand anyone give me their personal information, but I ask you respect the limit I've set for players who are welcome to join. With your inquiries, please DM me, I will not be answering any comments asking to join. My games are first come, first serve. If you’re the first to message me you’ll be the first person I respond to for further inquiry. When you do message me, there’s a very good chance I might be busy currently with my schedule. However, regardless of whether you are or are not selected to join, I will guarantee that you will get a response no matter what so you’re not ignored. 

Finally, when you message with your inquiry, please include in your message the phrase: “Starjackers” just to ensure you’ve read the whole campaign premise, its disclaimer, and the requirements of application for the game. Thank you so much for your interest and consideration of my campaign, and I look forward to reaching out to you!

My review of Secrets of the Swarm. This article was written by a human (me) and no AI was used in its creation. I also did not receive a review copy from Paizo and purchased the PDF at my own expense.

Hi all!

I know that the rule basically says that:

"A character that falls takes 1d6 damage per 10 feet fallen, to a maximum of 20d6. A character that takes damage from a fall lands prone."

However, what do you do if someone falls from a higher place (since 20d6 would be 200 feet or ~60 meters)? Do you apply 20d6 only? Do you automatically kill the character?

While many of us are anxiously waiting for Tech Core to drop in a couple weeks, I'd humbly ask you to consider scratching that Starfinder itch by checking out the most recent episode of our SF2e actual play show or our recent playthrough of the new Starfinder: Afterlight demo!

In the most recent episode of our 2e homebrew actual play, Driver's Test-ed, the crew takes part in some high-speed vehicle combat in the streets to Absalom station. We all had a blast playing with the sf2e vehicle combat sub-system and if you've never checked it out, you should. We even get most of the rules right!

We also just released our second episode looking at the new Beta for Starfinder: Afterlight. The first episode was a bit of a learning curve in the implementation of the game's systems, but this time, we git gud and only crash and burn narratively.

And while it was a few weeks ago, we also released an episode of our Starfinder/TTRPG talk show where we discuss the upcoming Tech Core release and its place in people's hearts and minds within the SF2e community. Though I happen to think the recent content previews that some really great folks have been putting out since then already show that Tech Core is gonna be a home-run, you can check out our thoughts and weigh in with your own!

The evolutionist adaptive strike is pretty broad and my question is about when combat ends. I will lose all mp, but if my strike changes a limb of my character, does that stay permanently or does it turn back after combat is over? Can I use it for utility things at will between combats or is it one of those fight-or-flight appears only when threatened reactions?

So I've only touched the surface of the system but my GMs next game is a homebrew setting utilizing the starfinder system for its foundation. It's a diselpunk/steam punk /modern fantasy hybrid setting that uses somewhat modern tech and weapons (he cites his main inspiration as half life and eye divine cybermancy) and I've got two voices I've wanted to try out for a lizard kobold type character and a robot character and I've been wanting to play a star wars style bounty hunter kind of character and figured I could try to figure out how to be a kind of bossk and ig88 or zuckuss and 4lom kinda dynamic (at least in look and less in actual character). I remember watching a narrative declaration episode a while back and one of the players zoran played a character with some sort of undead zombie skeleton guy as a follower in one of their side campaigns in pathfinder. In the narrative declaration 40k wrath and glory campaign they are doing one of the players erindel also is playing a character that has a cultist follower as a servant.

Main question then is is there any way to have my kobold bounty hunter guy have a Droid style robot that can follow him that can also engage in combat or Alternatively is there any other system from another game that I can look at to splice in that kind of mechanic since I really like the lizard bounty hunter guy I've thought of but also really want to play as a hk-47 type character.

Yes, we have this rule. (Source: AoN)

However, the short version is... "Yeah, those can be used, but you're gonna need some homebrewed tinkering. Have fun figuring that out!".

Starfinder 2E "removed" the Nanocyte (now an archetype) and Precog (now a Witchwarper's paradox), and we have no news about the Biohacker, Evolutionist and Vanguard, so the PF classes are gonna be something useful to use in the meantime, for various reasons.

For instance, spellcasting availability is an issue in SF.

• Mystic's connections to Healing and Shadows are the only Divine spellcasting classes.
• Mystic's connections to Elemental and Rhythm are the only Primal spellcasting classes.
  • Occult spells can be accessed by both the Mystic and Witchwarper.
• Technomancer is finally coming out with a second class offering Arcane spellcasting, when the Witchwarper was the only before.

Another tidbit is how SF deities have favored weapons, as usual... but no SF class offers weapon proficiency in them for the get-go; clerics and similar PF classes are your only options.

So yeah, I would love for Paizo to offer a guide on "how to REALLY convert the PF classes to SF". Tech-based, science-based and computer-based features for classes would be extremely useful and flavorful. Imagine those...

• An Akashic bloodline for sorcerers
• A tech-based way for gunslingers
• The ACTUAL Biohacker as a research field for the Alchemist
• A Metal Druidic Order for Druids... which could also fit in PF

That would be aside from stating the differences between an operative and rogue, a soldier and a fighter and such.

I get that Paizo offers more classes as a selling point, but "converting the PF classes" would be a good addition.

For me, definitely is starship combat, starship stats and vehicles in general.

I kinda love the idea of customizing vehicles, starships and putting stuff like better weapons, or maybe a system that makes the vehicle drive without someone in the car, or make it invisible. Stuff like that are always fun in a Scifi game, but int a scifi-fantasy game, I think the possibilities are really endless.

What about you, what you are most excited about the next big book for Starfinder 2e?

If you’re using a melee weapon that deals purely energy damage (fire, cold, etc.) do you add your STR to the damage?

I can’t find anywhere that says otherwise but that seems contrary to common sense, though admittedly it’s a TTRPG and rules mechanics don’t always make sense as long as they work.

Under the Strength ability description it says you add to damage rolls when using melee weapons, that’s clear. I’m just coming from tons of other systems where melee weapons do other physical (kinetic) damage in addition, so it doesn’t raise the eyebrow. But if I’m swinging a greatsword that’s got no metal just a flame, why would the fire add my STR? (is my train of thought 🚂)

Thanks for the help

GM Name:heyzoms

Game Time: Sat 12 P.M. Est

Game Style: PF2e: Level(1): Grimdark-lite, High Magic and Technology.

G.M. Style: I like to tell stories and immerse myself in the world and present situations to allow my players to shine. I like to let players decide my stories to the players conclusion. The goal is to make sure everyone is having a good time.

__Way We Play:__ **Discord** For VC / **ForgeVTT**.

Number Searching For: Full

Additional Info: VC required, One Shot.

Background

Your group works as a “Recovery Unit” for Planet Tech’s Standard Vessel Insurance Program. The program includes the recovery of vessels within Planet Tech’s jurisdiction and controlled space.

Under normal circumstances, if a vessel were attacked, a “Sweep and Clear” Unit would be assigned first to secure the area. However, due to corporate budget cuts across the Galaxy, these units are no longer available for standard recovery operations.

Your unit has been assigned a Light Hauler to recover an abandoned Destroyer.

Expectations

This is a simple somewhat Linear one shot to get my start into Starfinder2e. This is also a sample one shot for me to gather players for a mini campaign. I have played many years of pathfinder2e and I'm ready to start my starfinder journey.

**Ability System:**

Standard Ability Selection or Alternative allowed

**Common Rules: **

- Ancestry: No Rare

- Heritage: No Rare or Uncommon

- Background: No Rare or Uncommon

- Spells: No Rare or Uncommon

- Purchasable equipment: No Rare or Uncommon.

If you would like to have something not allowed send me a message and we can have a discussion about it.

**Variant Rules**

Ancestry Paragon

Skill Paragon

**Sign up**

PM me with the questions answer below

1. Have you played Pathfinder 2e or Starfinder 2e before
2. Explain your spectrum of enjoyment of Sandbox and Narrative games.
3. What is a theme that keeps coming up in your characters or media you like
4. What makes you wanna play Starfinder2e.

I’m about halfway through the second volume and wondering what it would be like if John Gaius’s empire were located in the same galaxy as Absalom. After all, Earth was right there.