Jeremias wrote:

I'm interested in adventures. One of the biggest selling points of Pathfinder are the AP, at least for me. What's your stance, will there be adventures?

Thank you for your question, Jeremias! I think that an AP in space would be an excellent venture!

gamer-printer wrote:

I built a homebrew base class called Starship Pilot (for my homebrew space setting, which leans more towards tech than magic) that was loosely based off ranger that had some of this "vehicle problem", with piloting skills that improve over level, and ship's gunnery skills (combat style), but I diversified the class by giving sidearm weapon bonuses, vehicle mechanic abilities (to work on broken systems aboard a starship and other vehicles, though not as well as an engineer, another base class of mine), survival skill bonuses (I know US Army helicopter pilots get regular training on survival for the expectation of crashing their craft in wilderness areas), and something I call Starport Savvy, which are bonuses (that improve every few levels, like Favored Terrain) to Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Knowledge (engineering), Knowledge (local), and Sense Motive. Starport Savvy is my way of giving some social skills in dealing with starport administrators, getting reliable parts, finding buyers and sellers of cargo, and finding paying passengers. Basically a vehicle guy, that has something else to do besides piloting, that can be applied to a wider range of usefulness in and out of combat. A possible direction to consider for your project that somewhat works around the problem you suggest exists for the concept.

It's certainly something to consider, and I thank you for bringing it up, gamer-printer!

Malwing wrote:

Well obviously a vehicle interaction base class would be able to make drive checks better than anyone but I envision one being able to perform tricks or abilities using vehicles of any caliber. In terms of what they would do outside of combat, I think something along the lines of the Gunslinger's chassis would be appropriate and also for flavor reasons. The way I kind of think about the Gunslinger to kind of brink him away from just being 'the guy with the gun' is that she's someone who dares to use a chunk of metal powered by explosions that can blow up in your face. I think Grit is the real defining mechanic behind the Gunslinger as using such a device requires some amount of passion, confidence and willingness to take risks. I think ultimately a vehicle interaction class would be somewhere along the lines of a Daredevil in an Evel Knievel kind of way. If that were the case then having a Grit-like pool that gives it tricks that it could perform in or out of a vehicle (give him ramming damage as a special charge attack because it's hilarious) and get points back for doing dangerous tasks (much like the Warlord in Path of War.) So in a vehicle it would be a high flying maverick pilot/driver and out of a vehicle it would be a some sort of cinematic action hero with way more luck than than is reasonable.

With respect, Malwing, this seems to make an argument for this hypothetical class to be an archetype of Gunslinger.

Seth Dresari wrote:

For some reason, I think Starseeker would be a better name than Starfinder. And for legitimate reasons, not just because it would be a reference to a song from Unreal (which mixed Fantasy and Science Fiction in a similar manner to this.) On that note, I hope Auto-magnums are an available weapon alongside everything else... and I also hope that they are very blocky and industrial in aesthetic.

Why would you want a modern gun? I am concerned about making Starfinder less "science fiction/fantasy" and too much "science fact". I want to avoid taking this product in a d20 Modern direction.

Freehold DM wrote:

Not a fan of base vehicle pilot classes or new base classes in any way. Too many trips down the unintended consequences aisle.

Thank you for your input, Freehold DM. This is why, if we go that route, we will do so after having fully considered any foreseeable consequences. It's not something that I would enter into lightly.

rungok wrote:

Considering that Magic and technology is being used together, is there going to be any hard rules about blending the two together? Like can I make a starship and then bolt on a bunch of +3 adamantine deck plates? Or give rayguns the fiery burst quality... stuff like that.

Thank you for your question!

While I understand that space adventures and high-technology often go hand-in-hand, I want to stress, as I have earlier in this discussion, the primary focus of Starfinder is not on expanding Paizo's Technology Guide.

Having said that, it is a possibility, but it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the going price of non-enchanted adamantine is 15,000gp for 100 pounds, which is reasonable since that is the additional cost for a suit of heavy plate, and a set of plate mail in real life weighs about a hundred pounds. One square foot of steel at an inch thick weighs 40.84 pounds. We'll go with one inch for the purposes of easily calculating hardness and so forth. That means that a five by five plate of non-enchanted adamantine should cost around 153,061 gp. If you're plating a 60-foot long by 20-foot wide vessel, that would cost approximately 551,019,600 gp to plate such a vessel in non-enchanted adamantine plates. Plating your vessel in +3 adamantine would increase the cost to approximately 4,959,176,400,000 gp for the materials alone. How much adventuring might you have to do in order to gather almost five trillion gold to buy +3 adamantine plating? Would such a project be worthwhile to plate such a small vessel? Even if you get a 99% discount on the materials, you're still spending about 49.5 billion to plate your vessel.

As for giving a ray-gun the flaming burst quality, there are already rules for that. A normal gravity pistol, for example, with 10 charges costs you 95,000 gp. Adding on the flaming burst quality raises the price to 103,000 gp. The cost is the bonus (+2) squared (+4) times 2,000 gp (8,000 gp). If we were to specifically outline such costs in Starfinder, would that not be a waste of word-count to reiterate existing rules? Would you not feel cheated on your purchase?

Thank you very much for your questions, all! Please feel free to continue to ask away!