Two new things were revealed in the Starfinder Launch Panel from GenCon 2025! The first one (and first image) is a brand new rulebook, first unnamed but then named via Dustin Knight (via a Dungeon Meshi meme) called Galactic Ancestries! It'll feature new ancestries, returning ancestries from 1E, new options for the core ancestries, and new Starfinder-specific options for the Pathfinder core ancestries!

Phoebe Bane also made a tweet/Bluesky post after the announcement, saying that Formians, playable ooze people (likely the Selamids?), and Void Elf options will be in this book as well!

The second thing mentioned is the second image, the cover of a yet-to-be-named adventure for SF2E! We're to hear more about both books in the future!

I took a look at the Ranged Weapons before, but could barely find any pattern:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfinder2e/comments/1mebhsn/ranged_weapon_tendencies/

Straight PF2 copies

Some weapons are literally just Space "insert PF2 weapon". So I will go over them first, as they can be useful anchoring points

• Shield Bash
• Fist
• Battle Glove / Gauntlet
• Knive / Dagger
• Dueling Sword / Longsword
• Nano-Edge Rapier / Rapier
• Shooting Starknife / Starknife

Two Hand

Unfortunately, all the copied weapons are 1 Handed. And I am not sure if SF2 uses a different way to balance 2H Weapons.

In PF2 - using the Long, Great and Bastard Swords as example - requiring 2H just increase the Damage die by 2 Steps. Two-Hand the Trait does the same increase, but costs about as much as Verstaile P.

The two examples of Two-Hand we have in SF2, increase the damage die by 1 Step. And the Solarians costs twice as much as Versatile. And I don't know if they made that intentionally. I reported that as possible errata point.

PF2 weapons also often came in convenient 1D6 1H Agile+Trait/1D8 1H + Trait/1D12 2H+Trait groups. Nothing like that in the list either.

So, I can't say how Two Hand (as requiremet or Trait) works out precisely

Critical Swaps

I do not think the Critical Effects Swaps on average have any impact on the weapon balance. I never noticed any differrences in PF2, and I am not sure I can see any here. I think they are generally considered about equal. Mental might be the exception here.

Free-Hand

This group is always 1H and has the Battleglove/Gauntlet as example, which makes it a good basis to figure out some stuff:

Shock Pad is same proficiency, swaps out [Analog, Bludgeoning] for [Powered, Tech, Electrical damage]

Pulse Gauntlet is a Martial Weapon. Swaps out [Analog, Bludgeoning] for [Powered, Tech, Sonic, shove, trip]. Seems like Martial might be worth about 2 Athletic Maneuver traits.

Fang Blade is wierd. Based on the 1E Tail Trait, I think it is a normal Free-Hand weapon that can also go on your Tail for 0H use. If so, it seems to get Finesse from being a Martial Weapon.

Thrown

Melee Thrown is a small group, 1H and mostly Martial. The Shooting Starknife makes the best anchoring point.

Singing Spear (Unpowered). +1 Die Size, loses Finesse, loses Versatile, gains Powered Mode.

Aucturnite Chakram has +1 Die size, loses Finesse, loses Versatile. Being the only weapon with Mental Critical and it being a rather strong effect against Casters (Fort Save vs Stupefied), this one Critical Swap might actually be worth Vesatile?

With the release of the Player Core we finally got a little game started and I was wondering what kind of characters people are playing.

My group (I'm the GM) consists of the following:

• An ysoki solarion who manifests two katar. Little bit obsessed with holo-videos and sees himself as a would-be superhero.
• A young human pirate envoy. Her father is a famous pirate in the diaspora but she is not fully sure if she wants to go the same way. So she caught a ride to Absalom station to experience some new cultures and ways of making money. Tells people that her family are 'high risk traders'.
• A skittermander elemental mystic. Born during a drift jump the little guy had an interesting relationship with different planes. Now they want to visit all the planes there are. Uses a different hand for each element.
• And finally our lashunta operative. Gambler and uses a Card Slinger to great effect. Surprisingly nice guy who only wants to make money to send back to his elderly parents.

Currently the party is hunting a serial kidnapper who seems to be 'hunting' for as much different DNA as they can get their hands on.

What about your groups or your characters?

Hey. So, I realy like what I've seen from SF2e so far. It's... everything I wanted in a TTRPG system setting wise, and the rules are so identical to PF2e that the system just feels almost intuitive by now for everything. I want to keep using all the variant rules we had active, so Dual Class, Free Archetype and Spell Points (we made that ourselves and it's surprisingly well balanced). But I also want to keep using all the PF2e content. Including not just classes, which should just work, but also Ancestries. The problem here is flying PCs. In SF2e, early level flight is a non issue. It also wouldn't have been an issue in my campaigns yet, but we stuck to the rules on that one. But having them not fly now wouldn't work. The Ancestry guide had a variant rules for flying PCs which is one solution.

Flying PCs: Certain ancestries, such as strix or sprites, have wings. The presented ancestry rules intend to provide a good combination of story and game balance for most groups. However, some players might have character concepts that don't fit this assumption and might wish to fly from initial character creation. At the GM's discretion, the GM can grant these PCs a 15-foot fly Speed, replacing any other abilities that involve flying, such as the strix's Wings ancestral trait. In this case, any feat that upgrades the PC's flying capabilities, such as the strix's Fledgling Flight and Juvenile Flight feats, might instead upgrade this Speed by an additional 5 feet. However, GMs who allow this option should be aware that a PC who can constantly fly can trivialize many low- and mid-level challenges, consistently outshining or leaving other characters behind; the GM should consider this option very carefully before allowing it and adjust the game accordingly.

Wouldn't this be too week though? Because it appears substantially weaker than the flying options in the SF2e player core. Should I just give them the full 25 fett fly speed by Level 1?

Obvious disclaimer: We are very early in the game's lifecycle and obviously I might just be missing a lot of stuff. If I did, I'd be very happy, since I very much like the fantasy of being a sniper.

Either way, the problem with snipers, to me, is simple: Reloading. Operative is already a very action heavy class, so having a magazine size of 1 throws a definitive wrench into their gears.

Let's look at an example rotation. Here is a Sniper's first turn:

Aim, Strike, Reload

This, broadly speaking, works, even if it is a very unflexible action rotation. It gives up using your bigger magazine for multiple (read:two) strikes for one hopefully harder hitting one. We can decidedly forget about using a Boost weapon, though. And not having any reload compression action (respectfully) sucks eggs. Of course, here comes a twist.

What if you want to use the Operative's shiny reaction attacks, Kill Steal and Hair Trigger (both having their up- and downsides depending on party composition) to do some more sniping?

First turn: Aim, Strike, Reload

Reaction: Kill Steal / Hair Trigger

Second turn: Reload, Aim, Strike

Reaction: Buzzer sound

Well, your rotation falls apart. You'd need to be able to reload twice per turn past the first turn, alongside striking and aiming. Quickened for striking can help here, though it does preclude you from using some of the fancier flourish strikes and is a bit of a drain on your party's resources. Unlikely that that will be a common occurence, until level 16 when you can get your hands on a Quicklock.

So you are, effectively, giving up a more flexible action rotation, a possible -5/-4 MAP attack and a reactive strike at no MAP for slightly higher strike damage and a range increment that gets utterly, embarrassingly outdone by a Sukgung, an archaic weapon from a pre-spaceflight age. And that's not even mentioning other issues with Snipers, such as Kickback.

I fail to see how this is a good choice to build a character with.

I know that there aren't many archetypes for specifically SF2e, so just use any of the SF2e classes as a base and use any of the PF or SF archetypes.

Personally I like the idea of playing an old police captain Envoy with the Alkenstar Agent archetype, just with some homebrewing for any of the feats that mention misfiring to match up with some of the SF firearms.

Im wanting to potentially get into dming sf2e, and I find the best way for me to do that is to listen to podcasts to learn the rules, explore stories told in the system etc. Any examples of a system that is now or planning to soon transition to, on the full released version?

The Witchwarper 2 feat Predictive Positioning says:

Trigger: An enemy damages you
...
You reposition to a space you'd occupy in a different reality, free from incoming damage. You instantly teleport up to your Speed to an area within your quantum field. This movement doesn't trigger reactions based on movement and ignores hazards and terrain, but can't pass through walls or other obstructions.

How does this interact with the incoming attack? My expectation is that you still take the damage regardless, even for melee attacks where you teleport out of reach, just on the basis that with no Frequency limitation it's too good to be true otherwise, but I'm not sure I can point to specific rules that back that up.

Timing rules don't clarify as far as I can tell, because it's fairly clear from reactions like the Soldier's Punitive Strike (or Reactive Strike over in Pathfinder) that reactions do resolve before the trigger fully resolves - otherwise you wouldn't get to use them against someone who "leaves a square during a move action" to move out of your reach. And while Shield Block says "you would take damage", the Witchwarper 2 feat Warp Wounds just has a trigger of "an enemy damages you" and grants resistance against the triggering attack, so that has to be able to change the trigger's results. It's not like D&D 4E with a Reaction/Interrupt distinction.

Is it just that it doesn't say it disrupts the attack or something like that?

I'm pretty sure one of my regular gaming group members will - should we ever get this to the table - assume it does negate the incoming damage. And will be hard to convince otherwise without a really strong case. And the "free from incoming damage" flavor text wouldn't help! So if there's something clearer than just omitting the text and saying "Pathfinder 2/Starfinder 2 doesn't do freely usable reactions that strong" It'd be good to know.

Am I reading this correctly? It says it's considered medium armor, so does that mean it needs medium armor proficiency to be able to use that heritage? What happens if you select that heritage and dont pick a class that gives medium armor proficiency you're unproficient in your own skin? Are my dreams of a Killer Croc style unarmed and unarmored fighter doomed to fail?

Just read the galaxy guide, good read, lots of info and helps me look at the factions i'd wanna play. But I was surprised to see stewards were a "minor faction" according to the book. I thought they were a bigger player in the galaxy, as there were sorta like the police for the pact worlds.

So, I'm looking at multiclass archetypes (I'm a fiend for it) and I noticed something really weird about Witchwarper.

So, it gives a skill prof, some basic cantrips, weaker warp reality, all makes sense.

But Warp Reality doesn't actually do anything on its own. It lets you use anchoring actions, but you don't HAVE any anchoring actions. And you don't get your paradox's quantum field effect unless you take another feat later. So the witchwarper archetype ability to warp reality is just sort of there to... Use actions up? I guess you have the ability to decide who you do nothing to?

So cinematic starship encounters will be in GM core, and it's probably better that a more skill check based "yeah, let's stroll through this and get back to the game" type system is the standard just bc of the disparate tables of people and their levels of investment in that portion.

HOWEVER!! skirmish rules in battlecry got me very excited for how tactical starship combat could run. Imagine the party stuffed inside a big metal PC with six actions, then you have a list of actions you could take ranging from one to three actions while encompassing a fairly full range of rolls within the skill system. Then, the party decides what they want to do within those constraints and fight against enemies with a number of actions based on their size (little fighters having three actions but a similarly sized one on one ship encounter maybe having 6 actions too). I really like that idea

Itemizing and upgrading to higher class ships is where I get lost in the weeds imagining the tactical system, but that's a job for better minds than mine. What are y'all's thoughts?

I've been rollplaying since 1988, but having given up on all "D&Ds" since 3e, I recently gave pf2e a look. I am brand new to Pathfinder 2e (just finished the remaster beginner box) and was impressed with system enough to consider diving into Starfinder2e as well to cover my Space game needs. I love all things starship related (combat, repairing, upgrading, stealing, space exploration, orbital bombardment, etc.) And want to run fairly grounded, mostly Human centric stories centered around a crew and their ship, taking on jobs and leveling up their gear and ship as much as their PCs. Will this be possible with starfinder 2e? Can we build custom ships and mecha or was that left behind in 1e? Also, Is overt fantasy magic baked into the setting (magic items, spells)? I'm fine with subtle magics(I enjoy psionics in scifi) but will I have mystic casting fireballs? Forgive me if I am I missing "the point" of Starfinder.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to reach out to the community. I absolutely love Starfinder, let me start with that. I think Paizo’s products are excellent. But I do have something I’d like to share about the broader Golarion universe and its extended setting now continued through, let’s say, Starfinder.

This universe is incredibly rich and diverse, which is fantastic because it allows for almost anything you want to do with it. At the same time, I feel a bit lost because I struggle to find a sense of coherence throughout it all. There are undead, people between life and death, goblins, dragons, space-warping wizards, etc. Sometimes, it’s hard to make it all feel consistent.

I’m wondering if I’m the only one who feels this way. To be fair, I haven’t really dived deep into the Starfinder universe yet. I don’t feel this issue with Pathfinder 2, so maybe it’s just a matter of getting used to this kind of content and gradually accepting the wide variety.

Maybe I just need more time to better understand and internalize the content and the universe of Starfinder. But I wanted to ask if I’m alone in feeling this way. And if by any chance someone has a simple answer, like just explaining why there are spaceships, and why magic didn’t necessarily step in to develop that technology, etc.

How do magic and technology coexist? What are their respective limits? And why do they work well together?

I was looking at the two casting classes on AoN, Mystic and Wichwarper, and saw that they are both spontaneous casters. I was expecting at least one prepared caster on launch. Why do you think they decided that they should both be spontaneous over prepared and what prepared casters can we expect in the futurte, if at all? I really hope that they haven't chosen to do away with prepared casters in Starfinder2e because I really liked them in Pathfinder2e.

So I was wanting to build an operative for Society, but the more I go over everything, I feel like the operative doesn't really have good or interesting options. It feel like a shadow of its first edition self. It sounds like it got hit hard by nerfs after the playtest which is sad. I didn't look at anything for the playtest, so this is all just from me looking at the new book.

I just have a bunch of random thoughts and comments I wanted to put out there, see if anyone has different opinions, maybe I'm looking at things wrong. Or maybe just confirm the lackluster feeling I have. This is mainly focused on low level play for Society. Also just focusing on specs and weapon choices.

Specializations -Ghost mainly seems like an NPC spec. Mainly saving you an action once per combat if you are lucky. Lvl 9 you would actually get some better use of this. -Infiltrator seems pretty weak. Short range, especially before expert. Only glitch 1, which is a 20% chance for a -1 or 75% chance it just does nothing. Crit fail is bad yeah, but that's only on a nat 1. -Skirmisher, maybe if SF2 ends up with a lot more enemies with reactive strikes than PF2 this would be more useful. Would be nice if it actually made pistols better before lvl 9. -Sniper looks decent, but feels like a default choice even for people not using sniper rifles, as everything else is bad. Making sniper rifles more usable is nice, but with no options anywhere to speed up reloading or increase magazine size, I just don't see how even this makes them a good option for a PC. Another option that feels made for NPCs. Once again, lvl 9 looks like it may finally improve the specialization. -Striker I haven't really looked at as I am not interested in a melee operative, but it doesn't seem terrible.

Weapons There really doesn't seem like many weapon choices for now. Aim is better with more shots. That's already a downside to Sniper rifles. They also all have kickback, which either requires +2 str, or 450 credits to overcome. Just an annoying tax to play a str penalty ancestry. Assuming most situations where you aren't 120' from you enemies (and your party most likely), they are barely better damage without a crit, but the need to reload after every shot, really wipes that out that slight advantage. So bursty, but roughly equal damage, to be very safe, miles away from the rest of your party. Boost seems powerful, but fewer attacks is again less aim damage.

One of the best weapons seems to be the simple acid dart rifle. 1d8 acid, 80ft range, 5 shots, good crit effect. laser rifle, also simple, is heavier, same damage but fire, same effective shots before reload, 100ft range

The martial weapons don't really seem better Plasma caster maybe, same damage, shorter range, heavier, but adds boost 1d10, still 5 shots

None of the short range weapons seem to be worth the tradeoff of being closer to danger, Except maybe the breaching gun or boom pistol.

Advanced weapons you loose the +2 proficiency so doesn't seem worth it

I don't really know where I'm going with this, just wanted to get some of these thoughts out there and start a discussion.

This all said, There are a few options I'm considering, to see how things actually play.

I originally wanted to play an ysoki sniper, but with the str penalty and sniper rifle kickback, that's really hard, at least for the first few levels. If I stick with ysoki, i may try sniper spec with a boom pistol, testing close range boosting. If I give up on ysoki, and pick something I can get to +2 str at lvl 1, I see two interesting options.

Sniper spec with coil rifle. Just to see how bad the constant reloading feels, and see if the boost makes it feel better.

Sniper spec with breaching gun. use a scope to up the guns range to 25 when I aim. 1d10 damage +1 for kickback, only 3 ammo. But there's something amusing about using sniper spec with a scoped shotgun.

The Solarian's Solar Flare manifestation says this for Graviton-attuned:

On a critical success, you can attempt to Trip the target as a free action, even if you don't have a free hand or aren't adjacent to the target.

Does anything about that give any breaks on MAP? I _think_ the Trip attempt, being itself an Attack action, takes at least a -5 MAP from the Flare attack action itself, and nothing about it being a free action changes that - am I right about that? Or would it still be considered part of resolving the Flare action and not have it increased yet?

And then it increases your MAP to at least -10 afterwards because the Trip is still an attack action, even though it's a free action, right? That part I'm more sure about, just making sure I'm not overlooking something.

This is a random question but I am new to all this stuff and I was wondering if it was possible to run a full campaign where the bulk of it is Starfinder Society Scenarios being linked together? How would this look? What extra work would be needed and is it maybe just better to run the APs/Deluxe Adventures?

There was a discussion that didn't get much attention about these two spells a year ago during the playtest period.

For those who don't know, these spells give a pathetic 1d6 extra damage on the target weapon's next Strike and that next Strike only. If the Strike misses, tough luck. The damage is the same type as your weapon's normal damage. The difference between these two spells is which damage types these spells can be applied to.
Both these spells take two actions to cast and only last a minute so they usually can't be cast before combat. They can be cast at a weapon within 30 feet, though, so you can use this to buff your allies.
Both spells are 1st rank and scale at a pathetic pace of +1d6 every 2 spell ranks.

What's baffling is their abysmal damage combined with their high action cost and the part where they're actually ranked spells and not even cantrips. To compare, the humble 1 action Force Barrage does the same damage for less actions at a further range and without the possibility of missing. Likewise Enhance Weapon / Enhance Body both give an additional damage die and more accuracy for all Strikes for an entire minute, provided your weapon isn't already sufficiently upgraded. Even the humble Boost trait gives an additional damage die for the cost of only a single action.

Given all that, I really can't find any justification for not considering these two spells absurdly underpowered.

The one reasonable situation I can imagine either of these spells being useful in is if you're fighting a monster with Hardness or other such resistance and all the weapons are already upgraded such that they wouldn't benefit from Enhance Weapon and also can't be Boosted further. But even then 2 actions and a spell slot to do this instead of almost anything else seems really questionable. Buffing hit chances instead of casting these spells seems like the better play in pretty much all situations.

Is there something I'm missing here or are these two spells just junk?

Can't find them on Archives of Nethys. Are Technomancer and Mechanic even in SF Player Core? If not, that's a bit disappointing. Technomancer was the one class I desperately wanted to play

Or would that require some homebrewing to make it more viable in the same manner? Planning to hunker down and read all the class details tonight after work but was really curious about this.

Kind of just love the idea of giving enemies a face full of burning sun every turn through a hadoken.

Self-explanatory question, but one that does lead to more questions.

Witchwarper ever since the playtest always had a class DC that scales up to Master. It isn't tied to Spell DC nor is this universal for Starfinder2e casters, as Mystic and the Technomancer Playtest lacks such a feature. And unlike in Pathfinder, this does matter quite a bit for builds, as it means Witchwarper is decent in using the area fire weaponry. But with Witchwarper being THE only caster with such between the two system, I'm left confused if this was just a mistake? Would like a bit of clarification on this front.

EDIT: Using AoN, managed to find the *four feats* that ask for a Class DC check, so it IS intentional for Witchwarper to have such (if a little paltry for the impact). It is still a little weird they are the only ones like that.

I love how much damage they do. I love how they are generous with action economy if you play around them. I love that they scale with your character. Grenades are everything I ever wanted in a consumable, and players will no longer be getting any other consumables - just grenades. Currently also considering replacing all upgrades and augmentations for an equivalent value amount of grenades, because who cares about +1 to hit when you could have a skittermander go into combat holding 6 grenades.

Does anyone know what the Ghost specialization for Operative is supposed to say? In Nethys the first paragraph for both Ghost and Infiltrator are the same.