Starfinder Starfinder vs Aethera: sell me PF in Spaaace!

[Thomas Bowman]

the point of kac and eac was to help simplify pathfinders ac system.
there would be no benefit to adding a 3rd ac

Well why then the demarcation between energy rifles and guns firing bullets, we don't actually know how much more effective an energy rifle would be over a gun firing bullets. We do know that we could easily mow down a knight in shining armor with a machine gun, but under Starfinder, those bullets would mostly ricochet off the knight in plate mail just as would a sword blow or someone firing a bow and arrow at him. If something needs a separate armor class, it would be all modern and futuristic firearms, melee weapons such as a pocket knife or an ax would use the old D&D/pathfinder armor class, but modern weapons would use KAC or EAC and KAC is worse than AC and EAC is worse than KAC for a person wearing a particular armor type, thus a person armed with a modern rifle has an easier time penetrating his opponent's armor, that is why guns were invented in the first place and why modern soldiers and police officers don't wear plate mail armor.

 

[jimtillman]

your asking to add complexity where its not needed
old fashion armor in starfinder is already covered by the Archaic keyword.
it does not have the lifesupport properties of advanced armors and
Arcahic weapons do less damage to people wearing advanced armor over Archaic armor.
also archaic armors tend to have crappy kac and little to no eac already
also no guns were not invented to primarily beat armor, in fact full plate came about as a way to beat early firearms
firearms were invented because they were vastly easier to field then longbows and had other edges against other ranged weapons.
plate mail went out of useage because it was expensive and sweltering before rifles could reliably penetrate it "though breast plates remained in some use up until ww1
but thats not even important, what is it to grok that realism has nothing to do with starfinder,pathfinder , d&d or most rpgs.
there is nothing realistic about any of the combat rules.
one of the main goals of starfinder is to take the basic pathfinder frame and clean it up adding a 3rd ac would be pointless and add needless complexity

 

[Thomas Bowman]

your asking to add complexity where its not needed
old fashion armor in starfinder is already covered by the Archaic keyword.
it does not have the lifesupport properties of advanced armors and
Arcahic weapons do less damage to people wearing advanced armor over Archaic armor.
also archaic armors tend to have crappy kac and little to no eac already
also no guns were not invented to primarily beat armor, in fact full plate came about as a way to beat early firearms
firearms were invented because they were vastly easier to field then longbows and had other edges against other ranged weapons.
plate mail went out of useage because it was expensive and sweltering before rifles could reliably penetrate it "though breast plates remained in some use up until ww1
but thats not even important, what is it to grok that realism has nothing to do with starfinder,pathfinder , d&d or most rpgs.
there is nothing realistic about any of the combat rules.
one of the main goals of starfinder is to take the basic pathfinder frame and clean it up adding a 3rd ac would be pointless and add needless complexity

It was made so complex already that the added complexity of having three armor classes would have been lost within. Alternity had three armor classes, but Alternity wasn't as complex as Starfinder. Alternity had High Impact (HI), Low Impact, (LI), and Energy Weapons (En) The only difference is Alternity Armor class used counter dice to absorb points of damage after it was resolved whether an attack hit or missed, if it absorbed all of the damage then it might as well have been a miss even if a hit was scored. But Alternity did have three kinds of armor classes.

Now why is realism important? Because if it is not important, then players would not fight like modern soldiers, they would just stand there in a shiny suit of armor taking hits while running up to the enemy and slashing him with a sword. Not exactly how a modern soldier would fight.

 

[jimtillman]

It was made so complex already that the added complexity of having three armor classes would have been lost within. Alternity had three armor classes, but Alternity wasn't as complex as Starfinder. Alternity had High Impact (HI), Low Impact, (LI), and Energy Weapons (En) The only difference is Alternity Armor class used counter dice to absorb points of damage after it was resolved whether an attack hit or missed, if it absorbed all of the damage then it might as well have been a miss even if a hit was scored. But Alternity did have three kinds of armor classes.

Now why is realism important? Because if it is not important, then players would not fight like modern soldiers, they would just stand there in a shiny suit of armor taking hits while running up to the enemy and slashing him with a sword. Not exactly how a modern soldier would fight.

starfinder does assume that players and foes will be using cover, there is even a feat to make it in emergencies .
so still not seeing your point,

what advantage do you think there would be in adding an other armor class?
what benifit would there be to how the game is played
your idea adds more complexity and weapon / armor trscking as a con
so what are the mechanical pros?