What's Next for Starfinder

Thurston Hillman and Jenny Jarzabski share what we can expect in the next few years from Starfinder.

We talked with Thurston Hillman and Jenny Jarzabski at Gen Con about what we can expect in the next few years from Starfinder.

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With the announcement of Starfinder 2nd Edition, the pressure is off the development team and they can finally talk about it. I got a chance at Gen Con to talk with Thurston Hillman, Managing Creative Director, and Jenny Jarzabski, Senior Developer, about what we can expect in the coming years for Starfinder.

First Things First​

First things first, there are still a few books coming for Starfinder 1st Edition. Starfinder Enhanced will be out in October. This is not a soft playtest of the new edition, but full of enhancements for your first edition characters. After that, there will be two more hardcover Adventure Paths: Scoured Stars and Mechageddon. These are the last books announced for first edition, but Thurston would not confirm that there aren’t any more coming.

Speaking of Mechageddon, Jenny’s favorite mech is a swarm mech with little AI controlled bits and bobs that can be sent out to do limited things. Thurston’s is the clock mech that has too many numbers on its face.

Now for 2nd Edition, it has been in the talks for years, but they have been trying to find the right time to bring it forward. It will be 100% compatible with Pathfinder 2nd edition and under the ORC license. This means there can be time travel shenanigans with gunslingers and operative snipers. This may have already been done with the development team.

Thurston is super stoked about finally getting three action economy for the game so now the games will have parity and not always be one step behind each other. In fact, Jenny and Dustin Knight spent time with the Pathfinder Remaster team, helping them and working on the books. This means they have a great handle on the rules and can hit the ground running with 2nd edition.

Field Testing at Gen Con​

As of opening day of Gen Con, Field Testing has been started for 2nd edition. This is really a chance for Paizo to keep their fingers on the pulse of the community and to allow fans to see the process of how the game is made. Already changes have been made to feats in the Soldier class because they were named the same as feats from other classes. If you got your hands on the physical copy of the Field Test, it will be different than the PDF online.

This is the most open playtest Paizo has put on and is a big behind the scenes on how your favorite games are made. They also promise to show some of their internal playtests and how they approach things. This could include blogs about their process and maybe streams of their playtests.

“Gaming is about community. And by bringing the community into what we are doing, it’s going to make the product better,” said Thurston.

Changes Are Coming​

Changes are coming. Not just by bringing Starfinder into the 2E engine, but narratively. Who are the big players? What lore needs updating? Are there places in the setting that need tweaking? This edition will allow them to lay a good foundation for the setting and drill down into the roots of it to bring more flavor into the setting.

“The classes you will see will be unlike classes you’ve seen before," said Thurston. “The classes we are doing for Starfinder 2nd Edition are not just sci-fi versions of Pathfinder classes.” They will be adding domains for Starfinder deities, even though there are no classes in Starfinder that need them. Those will be for when you bring over your Pathfinder classes into Starfinder. This means you can play a cleric in space.

Some other tidbits Thurston and Jenny shared:
  • Spellcasters will be happy to note that there will be up to tenth ranked spellcasters for cool space wizardry.
  • If Jenny has anything to say about it, mechs will find their way back into Starfinder eventually, just not in the near future.
  • Solarian’s will be taken in an interesting way where their abilities key off different attunements for different results depending on your attunement at the time.
  • 2024 will see the release of the Playtest rulebook to allow fans to playtest the game and help the team work out any of the kinks in the system. This will allow the community to be very involved in the process and fill out a feedback survey.
  • 2025 is the planned release of the 2nd edition.
  • Spoiler exclusive for E.N. World from Thurston: They are going to blow up a planet in the Pact Worlds, for reasons Thurston wouldn’t disclose. There will be a new Pact World joining, just not in the Golarion system.
 

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Dawn Dalton

Dawn Dalton

Count_Zero

Adventurer
Spoiler exclusive for E.N. World from Thurston: They are going to blow up a planet in the Pact Worlds, for reasons Thurston wouldn’t disclose. There will be a new Pact World joining, just not in the Golarion system.

Probably taking out another Ancestry that's too close to 3rd edition, rather than retconning the damn thing to something closer to the Creative Commons licensed 5e SRD.
 


Jacob Lewis

Ye Olde GM
Some other tidbits Thurston and Jenny shared:
  • Spellcasters will be happy to note that there will be up to tenth ranked spellcasters for cool space wizardry.
One of the most appealing aspects of SF for me was the fact that they capped spells at level 6 for everyone. This IMO really helped tamp down on those highly nuisance spells from earlier editions that had the most potential to break games/campaigns. And it helped maintained more of a sci-fi theme to the system, which made sense where technology was available to everyone and easier to use.

Granted, PF2 rules work much differently than PF1 or SF, so this may not affect anything in the long terms. But hearing this is distressing as it was one of the major draws for me to this particular system/setting.

The other point that worries me is how they are making extra efforts for accomodating PF2 characters and options for SF2 to make them cross-compatible. While I'm certain many people are excited about crossovers and whatnot, I don't want this to become normalized. The draw for me isn't having a "bigger playground" here. Both settings are quite large enough on their own, thank you very much.

What excites me about SF using the PF2 ruleset is the fact that it makes it much easier to find more people who might be interested in the game. A lot of players/GMs are hesitant to try new systems simply because it requires learning new rules, new mechanics, and/or new lore for settings. Using PF2 rules and making cross-compatible means making the system more accessible for more people without the added barrier of learning a different or alternate ruleset.

In short, accommodations for PF options in SF needs to be the secondary goal here, not the first. Focus on letting Starfinder stand on it's own before crossing the streams. I would much prefer having distinct flavors of fantasy and sci-fi with one system rather than start off with a struggle to keep them separate.
 

NerdyBird

Explorer
Probably taking out another Ancestry that's too close to 3rd edition, rather than retconning the damn thing to something closer to the Creative Commons licensed 5e SRD.
Why is this "take" even still a thing? Why is it so hard to understand/accept that Paizo is removing things that could cause legal issues down the road? It's potentially their butt in the sling, not yours. Not to mention Paizo has their ORC licence and would, obviously and rightfully, want their IPs covered there and not there and nebulously elsewhere too.

Do what you wanna at your table and stop bitching about everything else.
 

It would be funny if in the future Hasbro was selling the action figures of Starfinder. (Yes, it is a fool idea, but I said it to laugh, why not?).

* If a world of the pact is going to.... be replaced, then the book of "Pact Worlds" I bought will earn value, will it not?

* Sorry for the players awaiting the updated version of their favorite no-core class/PC race.

* Mechas in Starfinder could sond very cool, but knowing what is the right challenging rating or power balance is not easy at all.
 


Erdric Dragin

Adventurer
My friend has been wanting to run Starfinder forever, and we're all good for it, but he's having misgivings and might wait until Starfinder 2E which is a year and a half away.

My issue is, SF2E won't have much options in comparison to SF1e. By the time SF2e picks up big, it's 2030. Trying to convince him to wait until Starfinder Enhanced and we just start SF1e and run through all the Adventure Paths and by then we'll be ready for SF2E maybe.

Plus I despise new editions, mainly cause it never is compatible with the previous edition, ruins game lore, and half of the material you're actually just repurchasing as they're conversions from before.

One day, a TTRPG will be released that will never change editions. One day.
 

Retreater

Legend
My friend has been wanting to run Starfinder forever, and we're all good for it, but he's having misgivings and might wait until Starfinder 2E which is a year and a half away.
I bought a load of Starfinder books last weekend - even after the announcement. I figure that 2-ish years is plenty of time to enjoy those books.
If you want to play, I wouldn't worry about 2E down the road. Use Archives of Nethys if you don't want to spend anything, or pick up the Pocket Core Rulebook on Amazon (it's $20 currently).
Tomorrow's not guaranteed. Don't wait to play the games you want.
 


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