Editing Starfinder (section)

===Differences from Pathfinder===
Considering that this is Paizo, the goons who made a killing off of resurrecting 3.5E, the rules for this game aren't that far removed from the original PF mechanics. Though you can't get a 1-1 translation of all the classes, you can probably be able port most of your characters over.

* Each character now has both [[hit points]], which are hard to replace, and "stamina points," which work like hit points but can be much more easily recovered and are always lost first. HP is essentially stuck as a hybrid between racial stats (meaning that little spessrats only give 2 HP to a character while burly Vesk and chitinous Shirrens give 6 HP) and class stats (essentially like Hit Die, only with no rolling), while Stamina is given per class level + [[Constitution]] Modifier.
* The Resolve mechanic gives you a small pool of points to spend for recovering stamina, stabilizing if you're dying, and getting up if you're stable. These points are keyed off of a single stat your class is dependent on (so Soldiers pick between Str and Dex, Mystics use Wis, so on and so forth). Each class even has special uses for Resolve and backgrounds can give special circumstances for regaining them.
* In addition to your race and class, you pick a "theme" at character creation, which is basically a 5e background. Themes are things like being an Ace Pilot or a Xenoseeker that give your character some flavor, and a few other abilities that unlock as you level, plus a small stat boost.
* Archetypes, rather than being class-specific and swapping out whatever abilities they want, are a bit more reminiscent of 4e's Themes - You pick it up and it replaces certain class abilities (and since these are for all classes, they switch off only certain abilities) and grant new abilities.
* Skills are largely condensed in a way that makes breadth of usefulness much more tolerable than Pathfinder: a single Athletics skill rather than separate skills for Climb and Swim, for instance, or Mysticism instead of Arcana and Spellcraft. Also helping is that each class has a tolerable number skills than the old edition (read: NO MORE 2+INT SKILL RANKS).
* No full casters: the Technomancer and Mystic classes (and later the Witch Warper and Precog) only get up to sixth level spells. All casters have limited spells known, preventing solutions from being pulled out their ass (the Magic Academy Student archetype bypasses this however). All spellcasting is distinctly 5e-ish, with lower-level spells having versions cast from higher level slots with boosted effects. For instance, the primary healing spell is a first-level spell, but it heals more and more as it gets cast in higher level slots, eventually also cleansing various status effects and resurrecting the recently deceased. This works backwards from the 5e implementation however, with knowing a high level version of the spell allowing the lower level versions to be used rather than being able to prepare low level spells in higher slots.
* All get "Weapon Specialization" with weapons they are naturally proficient in via class during progression, and you can take it as a feat for other weapons.
* Multiple attacks per round aren't really a thing. Everyone can split their attacks, but this doesn't improve with levels. To compensate, weapons scale up in damage dramatically at intervals. End level weapons do stupidly large amounts of damage, but the average damage per round is more-or-less on par with Pathfinder.
* Everyone has [[derp|two kinds of AC]]: KAC, for kinetic weapons like swords and bullets, and EAC, for energy weapons like lasers and bootleg lightsabers(basically Touch AC). Unlike with PF where you're stuck trying to remember what armor bonuses add to Flat-Footed or Touch, this allows you to calculate your defenses a bit easier.
* Cybernetics and genetic modding are also a thing.
* Most classes start off scaling a bit slow, then ramp up at about level 11. For instance, a Solarian's energy blade does 1d6 damage at first level, then 2d6 at fifth level, but starts going up much faster at level eleven, and caps out at 12d6.
* Weapons take a page out of 4E's book and have items that scale in power alongside player levels...except they don't give them to you, no! You still have to buy these stronger guns and armors! Armory gives you a means to build these new gears as upgrades to prior models, but that won't stop certain dead levels from existing and you still need cash for supplies.
** Magic Items, while still given in the form of special properties, no longer depend on a certain enhancement on the weapon and instead just fit in if the magic property's level is less than or equal to the item's level.
* Ship-building and combat will be very familiar to those who played [[Rogue Trader (RPG)|Rogue Trader]]. Build Points to buy parts for your ship, the need to travel through an alternate dimension that may or may not contain unholy terrors, the whole shebang. Unfortunately the whole process is broken as fuck, you can easily build ships that can destroy the pre-built dreadnoughts while being a fraction of their cost and faster than a scalded cat.
** The promotional material also promised that each class would totally have mechanics to help them in ship combat. Most of this is false. Not only is a majority of the mechanics keyed off of RANKS in a particular skill (Pilot for all the ship defenses) rather than the character's levels, but several class bonuses are flat-out not allowed to work in a ship. Also damning is the sharply-rising difficulty curve for all your ship actions, which keys itself off of the average party level rather than some other stat <s>[[Wat|This means that if you level up high enough, your little zippy spaceship that's been extensively customized will be as impossible to maneuver for your veteran crew as a fucking freighter for a bunch of rookies]]</s> but this was fixed in the errata.
** Each character has roles during combat, similar to RT. Unlike that game though, the roles are a lot more simplified in number (Captain for leading, Gunner for shootin', Engineer for fixing, Pilot for flying, and Science Officer to manage all computer things) and complexity, with the ''Character Operations Manual'' adding a few more roles. All each role does is grant special abilities to use in combat.
** As an offshoot to ship combat, giant robot combat is also announced with the upcoming ''Tech Revolution'' book. If you thought ships were a pain, well...this seems to be just as bad if not more painful.