After picking up a copy of Paizo’s much anticipated game Starfinder at Gen Con 50 last year I finally had the opportunity to run it. There are a lot of reviews published and videos available but I wanted to approach this review from the angle of the Gamemaster. I’ll skip over specifics of character generation and the various themes, classes, races, spells and get down to my take on the rulebook.

Picking up the Starfinder Core Rulebook you are instantly reminded of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. Paizo packs a lot of information between the covers. At over 500 pages I felt the book justified its $59.99 price tag. But there were a few things that left me questioning the layout and decision making process Paizo used to determine what information to include and exclude.

Character generation gets you going quickly. After the basics of the mechanics you select a Theme for your character (similar to Backgrounds in D&D 5e), you next choose a Race (the book includes several new alien races along with the all of the “legacy” races from Pathfinder), and then a Class.

Starfinder is not Pathfinder in space, technically speaking. The game mechanic is different from Pathfinder but the core D20 mechanic is there. The learning curve can be a little steep but with time and careful reading you’ll quickly have the hang of it. Player characters, for example, have two types of “health.” You have Stamina Points and Hit Points. If you are familiar with the Palladium roleplaying game system of SDC and Hit Points then the health point system of Starfinder will have a familiar feel to it. Stamina Points reflect how tough you character is whereas Hit Points are damage that can impede your abilities and once they are exhausted your character is dead.

I found character generation fairly easy to grasp. The book is laid out in a logical order and you move from chapter to chapter. I created a Starfinder version of my favorite character, Greytome. In Starfinder Greytome has the Theme Priest, he’s a Half-Elf, and I selected the class Mystic. Priest gave me healing abilities, Half-Elf was a legacy race from Pathfinder included in the book, and Mystic gave me spell casting. It is a Greytome after all.

Helping my players build their characters was somewhat of a challenge. I don’t fault Paizo for this as it is to be expected when you are introducing a group to a new rule set. The ones that were familiar with Pathfinder and Palladium had an easier time grasping some of the rules.

When equipping your character there are level guidelines to help balance things. Each weapon, piece of armor, and tech has a level rating. Gear becomes more powerful, and consequently more expensive as its level goes up. Lower level characters can use gear with a higher level ranking but it could unbalance the game.

The rules for including cybernetics in your character are spelled clearly and concisely. It brought me back to my days of playing Cyberpunk and Shadowrun. New characters have a wide range of gear to choose from. Some items can be upgraded or infused with powerful magics. Even with all of the options and choices Starfinder makes equipping your character a pain free process.

I’m going to skim over starship building for now. That is a task I relegated to one of my players who was very excited to build the team’s ship. Basically you use “build points” to assemble the ship. Example ships from fighters to carriers are provided to help guide you. There isn’t a clear explanation of how to convert credits to build points though. In my game I gave the players 75 build points. I did comp them another gun so each player had a spot on the crew. I didn’t want players sitting out during starship battles. Gamemaster’s can either give players a ship or have them save build points (by salvaging) to build their own. Personally, I used the prospect of gaining a ship as a hook to start the adventure.

A minor complaint about the book is a few important listings are missing from the index. My adventure took place on a small moon. I calculated that the gravity was 1/6 normal (Earth gravity). During the game one of my players wanted to use the lower gravity to jump over a shuttle craft. Trying to look up the rules for jumping in low gravity I first checked under “gravity” in the index. I found the suggested rules for extending the jump distance in low gravity but not the actual rules for normal distances and what checks needed to be made. I eventually found it under the skill Acrobatics. A note in the index in this case would have saved some time. It’s a similar to a problem with Green Ronin’s Mutant &  Masterminds rulebook. Toughness is a major ability for combat but it is not listed in the index. After hunting for it I found it in a paragraph under “Stamina.”

I did have one major problem with the core rule book. When Wizards of the Coast (WotC) introduced the Dungeons &  Dragons Fifth Edition Players Handbook it was the only available resource at the time. Wisely, WotC included several monster and creature stats to help DM’s get new games started. That is completely lacking in the Starfinder Core Rulebook. Only one creature, the Space Goblin, is provided with a complete stat block. Encounter development references the Alien Archive sourcebook for more details. Trouble is, at the time Starfinder was printed the Alien Archive wasn’t available yet. Even now if you only purchase the Starfinder Core Rulebook you will not have a lot of NPC or creature options. You will need to purchase the Alien Archive Sourcebook. While this irks me I do give credit to Paizo for making PDF versions of the Starfinder books available for a reasonable price of $9.99.

I beleive the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in the Starfinder. Even though you’ll need to get an additional sourcebook or two they are affordably priced in electronic format. In the end my gaming group enjoyed the game and I had fun running it. I have actually put the D&D 5e game I’m running on hold to make room for Starfinder after an enthusiastic request to keep going.

I look forward to your thoughts on Starfinder. Be sure to leave a comment below!

Thank you,

Oliver Greytome