D20 Related Scifi RPG mechanics comparison
Please ignore the extraneous 1s, the tables are easier to work with if they have something in the cells.
For many years I wanted to develop Galaxy Pirates as a D20 based RPG, I started out with D20 Modern and Future, played a lot of Star Wars D20 but that’s not OGL material. Some parts of Star Wars came out as OGL in Unearthed Arcana. I ran a test game of SWSE because my group was excited to see what 4th Ed D&D was going to be like. We never ran it as a campaign, Jim ran lots of it and is quite enamoured of the SAGA system.
In 2012, the first Galaxy Pirates Playtest Core book was a Pathfinderized D20 Modern/Future hybrid. In 2017 Paizo released Starfinder and I thought I’d just release GP as a compatible supplement. However Pathfinder 2e came out with a lot of interesting changes that Starfinder didn’t have, the Proficiencies handling Attacks, Armor, Save, and Skills all working on the same mechanic is just too big a deal to overlook. The three action economy lets you be a lot more mobile and not have to choose between moving and getting a useful number of attacks or actions, that all interesting actions are interchangeable it’s too big a deal to ignore. Jim still has strong feels for SAGA though, so I’m trying to work out the differences between systems and figure out what the Galaxy Pirates house system will be what design itches it will scratch.
| Name | D20 Future | D20 Star Wars | Star Wars Saga Edition | Starfinder | Pathfinder 2e |
| Ancestry | Stats, Eyes, Haircut | Stats, Eyes, Haircut | 17 Stats, Eyes, Haircut | Stats, Eyes, Haircut | Varied Abilities over many levels. |
| Background | Class Skills and Wealth bonus | ? | ? | Themes allow for more variation than Race + Class | Grants Lore and |
| Class | Base and Advanced many empty levels. | Base and Prestige many empty levels. | many empty levels. | Base Classes with no empty levels. Archetypes instead of Multiclassing. | Base Classes with no empty levels and the ability to take class features from other classes. |
| Attributes | 4d6 Drop Lowest or 8 Plus 25 Point Buy | 4d6 Drop Lowest | 8 Plus 25 Point Buy | 10 Plus 10 Point Buy | 10 Plus 9 Ability Boosts |
| Hit Points | Hit Points | Vitality/Wounds | Hit Points and Condition Track | Stamina/Hit points, Race and Class and Constitution bonus | |
| Skills | 4x Starting with Cross Class | 4x Starting with Cross Class | 4x Starting with Cross Class | Normal Starting with +3 Trained bonus | Proficiencies |
| Feats | Feat Taxes and Feat Trees | Feat Taxes and Feat Trees | Feat Taxes and Feat Trees | No Feat Taxes, and No Feat Trees | No Feat Taxes, and No Feat Trees |
| BAB | Traditional | Traditional | Traditional | Traditional | Proficiencies |
| Saves | Traditional | Traditional | Not-Traditional | Traditional | Proficiencies |
| Armor | Traditional | Defense | ? | Kinetic and Energy | Proficiencies |
| Attribute Increases | Never | +1 Every 4 Levels | +1/+1 Every 4 Levels | +2/+2/+2/+2 Every 5 Levels | +2/+2/+2/+2 Every 5 Levels |
| New Feats | Every 3rd level | Every 3rd level | Every Odd Level | ||
| Boosts, Rerolls? | Force Points | Resolve Points | Hero Points | ||
| Dying | Dead at -10 Wounds | Condition Track, Damage Threshold, no negative HP | Resolve Points, no negative HP | Recovery Checks, no negative HP | |
| Degree of Success | Pass/Fail | Pass/Fail | Pass/Fail? | Pass/Fail/Fail by 5+ | Degree of Success |
| Flat Footed | Traditional | No Dex bonus | Can’t apply Dex bonus to Reflex Defense | -2 Penalty | -2 Penalty |
| Touch AC | Traditional | No Dex to Defense | ? | Energy AC | ? |
| Size Modifiers | Traditional | Traditional | Traditional | Removed | |
| Cover | No Firing into Melee Feat taxes, use only the normal cover rules | ||||
| Damage | Static Weapons Iterative Attacks | Static Weapons Iterative Attacks Force Users have Scaling Weapons | Static Weapons Iterative Attacks Force Users have Scaling Weapons | Scaling Weapons Single or Full Attacks | Scaling Weapons 3 Actions |
| Critical | Threat Ranges and Confirmations | Threat Ranges and Confirmations, Damage goes directly to Wounds | ? | Natural 20, No confirmations, Double Damage and Special Effects | ? |
| Actions | Traditional | Traditional Many feats quicken specific actions | Traditional Many feats quicken specific actions | Traditional | 3 Actions |
| Grappling | Beat KAC by +8 to succeed | Beat Fortitude Save to succeed | |||
| Attacks of Opportunity | No Action, attack anyone provoking at Full BAB | No Action, attack anyone provoking at Full BAB | No Action, attack anyone provoking at Full BAB | As a Reaction, universally available | As a Reaction, not universally available |
| Cleave | Feat Tree, attack anyone adjacent at Full BAB | Feat Tree, attack anyone adjacent at Full BAB | Feat Tree, attack anyone adjacent at Full BAB | Not in the Core Rules | As a Reaction, Barbarians can attack another adjacent foe when the conditions are met. |
| Whirlwind Attack | Feat Tree, attack anyone in range at Full BAB | Feat Tree, attack anyone in range at Full BAB | Feat Tree, attack anyone in range at Full BAB | Does not exist | Whirlwind Strike uses 3 actions, has to be an opening and flourish, applies multi-attack penalty. |
| Character vs Starship | ? | Works well at small scales | Works well at small scales | Intentionally designed not to interact with characters | Ships are Vehicles |
| Character vs Vehicle | Fine for system with no damage scaling | Works well at higher levels | ? | Intentionally designed to favor characters | Level Appropriate Vehicles aren’t too overpowered compared to Characters |
| Buy things with money | Wealth Checks | Credits | Credits | Anything but ships | Silver-based economy |
| Encounter Building | ? | Weird guidelines | ? | Well defined | Well defined |
| Treasure, XP Awards | Wealth check bonuses were weird | Weird guidelines | ? | Well defined guidelines | Well defined guidelines |
| Monster Creation | Not really | Not really | Not really | Yes, well defined Statistics by level | Yes, well-defined Statistics by level |
| NPC Creation | NPCs use Character Classes without Feats | NPCs built like characters? | NPCs built like characters? | NPCs built as Monsters with Class Grafts | NPCs built as Monsters with Class Grafts |