More on Starfinder - The Basics

 Big caveat here: I haven't read through the whole 500+ page core rulebook yet, but I'm slowly piecing together how this system works.

Starfinder is based on Pathfinder, which is in turn based on, I believe, 3.5th edition D&D. So there's a fair amount of shared DNA. But while 5th Edition famously stripped down a lot of the more complicated systems, Starfinder retains a fair amount of crunchiness. I don't think it's insurmountable, but from my half a day of looking into the system, I figured I'd compare it to D&D's 5th Edition to see how the two relate.

Core Character Basics:

Here, we've got some pleasingly corresponding elements. When you build your character, you pick a race, a class, and a theme. The former two correspond very closely with D&D's versions, and Theme is somewhat analogous to D&D's Backgrounds. In terms of building your character's backstory, the two are practically identical. Mechanically, themes bring a few things at different levels, and thus might have slightly more of a mechanical impact, but they're clearly filling the same RP function - allowing you to flavor your character beyond simply their species and their suite of abilities.

The six abilities are the same as they are in D&D - Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Likewise, these scores give you modifiers calculated in the same way as in D&D, and those modifiers are the basis for your bonuses (or penalties) to various rolls.

It appears that Attack Rolls, Ability Checks, and Saving Throws are more or less conceptually the same, though "ability checks" and "skill checks" are categorized separately. Saving Throws also come in Fortitude, Will, and Reflex varieties, which in practice are Con, Wis, and Dex saves, respectively. I don't believe there are saves for the other three abilities (while I think Strength saves make sense, Intelligence and Charisma saving throws have always been a little unclear as to what they really represent). You do, in fact, add those ability modifiers to those saves, so it really amounts to almost the same thing.

One big difference is that skills do not use a single generic "proficiency bonus" as 5th Edition uses, nor do attack rolls or the DCs for your own features and traits. Instead, each class has a number of "class skills" that you get an automatic +3 bonus to, and then, each time you level up, you can invest in various skills to rank them up. The number of ranks you can gain is determined by your intelligence, making it valuable even to characters that don't need it for, say, spellcasting. This means you'll potentially be getting different bonuses to skills that you have that use the same underlying ability modifier. Also, there's a distinction between skills that can be attempted without training versus those that require it. For instance, anyone can try a Bluff check (the equivalent of Deception) but only someone who actually has some skill in Piloting can attempt to drive a vehicle.

I haven't gotten fully into how weapons work, but it seems that ranged weapons don't inherently receive a bonus to their damage based on your statistics, but "martial" classes get a free feat that allows them to add an amount equal to their class level (or maybe half their class level?) to the damage.

Actually, feats seems a much bigger deal in the game. Not only that, but at least the first two classes listed (Envoy and Mechanic) have a ton of customization options, with different talents and abilities to pick up. That said, there isn't a real "subclass" element here, instead emphasizing the idea of a build meant to fulfill your class fantasy.

I think I need to re-read the Envoy having gotten a better sense of the game (or maybe I should say *when* I get a better sense of the game,) but it seems to be built around various ways to encourage allies or interfere with foes. It's somewhat Bard-like in that sense, but it's not a spellcaster.

The Mechanic has two major options (which are sort of like subclasses,) where they can either create an AI-driven drone that acts as a kind of battle pet or familiar, or they can build an exobrain that more directly enhances their own capabilities.

Another thing of note is that the game makes it easier to increase ability scores when they're lower - at level thresholds for each class, you can increase four abilities, and if that ability is currently less than 17, you can raise it by two points (fully increasing the modifier by 1) but when it gets to 17, it only increase by 1 each time. This would seem to allow you to get decent scores across the board while it makes it a little slower to actually max out an ability score.

I haven't gotten into the flow of combat, but it does seem that there's a bit of an equivalence between actions, bonus actions, and movement with actions, swift actions, and move actions in Starfinder. However, it appears that move actions can sometimes be used for other purposes depending on your class or other features.

There's a huge swath of equipment to look through - tons of weapons, armor, and other things like computers and armor modules, which you can install in armor to grant extra effects like giving you darkvision, or a force field, etc.

And I haven't even touched on Starship combat yet.

Basically, there's a lot to go through. I think I'll need to roll up a test character and go through their build step by step, which should hopefully help me grasp all these concepts better.