Paizo announces Starfinder Second Edition – Fully compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition – Playtest coming in 2024

As part of the company keynote presentation for Gen Con 2023, Paizo Inc. announced Starfinder Second Edition. The new edition will be published under the ORC License and implements the three-action economy, making it fully compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition and the Remaster Project.

“With the finalization of the ORC License, and considering that Starfinder has been evolving since its release in 2017, we felt now was a perfect time to bring the system into the future,” says Starfinder’s Managing Creative Director, Thurston Hillman, “We want to take a moment to take all the things we’ve learned since Starfinder began, as well as lessons from the success of Pathfinder’s latest edition, and synthesize those together into a new and better version of Starfinder”.

The announcement featured a short panel with the Starfinder team – Thurston Hillman, Jenny Jarzabski, Dustin Knight, and Jessica Catalan. The roundtable discussion highlighted some key elements of the upcoming Starfinder Playtest and the new edition:

• This is the most open playtest Paizo has ever launched, with deeper looks into the development process.
• Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Second Edition rulesets will be completely cross-compatible, allowing for cross-system porting of classes, creatures, and more — provided your GM allows it.
• The first four classes announced for the Starfinder Playtest are:
  • Mystic, represented by the iconic shirren mystic Chk Chk – son of the previous iconic mystic, Keskodai.
  • Soldier, represented by the returning iconic vesk soldier Obozaya.
  • Envoy, represented by the returning iconic human envoy Navasi.
  • Solarion, represented by a new iconic pahtra solarian — also opening up the feline pahtra as a core ancestry for Starfinder Second Edition.
• As part of the ‘open playtest’ model, the Starfinder team will be keeping players updated and involved with “Field Tests” — the first of which released today alongside the announcement at starfinderplaytest.com
• Content for this first Field Test includes the Soldier Class (Levels 1-5), new equipment, and new creatures (the Computer Glitch Gremlin and Laser Wolf).

The Starfinder Playtest Rulebook will be available in summer 2024 as a softcover rulebook. As Starfinder Second Edition will be using the Pathfinder Second Edition ruleset, base system rules will not be a part of the playtest. Rather, the playtest will focus on the core elements of gameplay, including new classes, a scaling equipment system, new skills, and more.

 Further information about Starfinder Second Edition, including an FAQ, field tests, playtest documents, and more can be found at starfinderplaytest.com.

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