1st level build: Soldier or Solarian


Advice

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Fair point

Though if this is like PF interms of resistance, shock, acid and sonic will probably be the least common ones


Ventnor wrote:
Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
Hmm seems like plasma weapons are a weaker weapon choice if one prepares for them. I guess we will have to see how many monsters have resistance to fir and electricity if their demons and devils I feel like plasma is not gonna get you anywhere.

Plasma would be good if you don't know if the thing has Fire or Electricty resistance/immunity, this way you'll know that at least some damage is getting through.

Unless you go up against a Succubus, which is immune to both. Then you're screwed (in probably more ways than one).

Honestly, that doesn't make sense to me.

A succubus immersed into a star's corona should die. Lots of things should.

Nope! :3

Also I'd like to point out that in Pathfinder and Starfinder there are artificial planets and floating cities that are actually in the Sun and other stars.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Granted a Holy Plasma Sword can cut through a succubus or any other demon or devil as easily as normal bodies. You can totally have a Sarenite with a holy plasma cannon blasting into a hoard of demons and this is a great thing.


Does holy bypass energy resistance as well? Thought it only went through damage reduction


Holy wrote:
A weapon with the holy fusion becomes blessed with divine energy from a good deity. Any attacks with the fused weapon are good-aligned. Damage from the weapon bypasses DR/good and ignores the energy resistance of evil dragons, evil outsiders, and evil undead. The holy fusion cannot be added to weapons that have the unholy fusion.


Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Ventnor wrote:
Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
Hmm seems like plasma weapons are a weaker weapon choice if one prepares for them. I guess we will have to see how many monsters have resistance to fir and electricity if their demons and devils I feel like plasma is not gonna get you anywhere.

Plasma would be good if you don't know if the thing has Fire or Electricty resistance/immunity, this way you'll know that at least some damage is getting through.

Unless you go up against a Succubus, which is immune to both. Then you're screwed (in probably more ways than one).

Honestly, that doesn't make sense to me.

A succubus immersed into a star's corona should die. Lots of things should.

Nope! :3

Also I'd like to point out that in Pathfinder and Starfinder there are artificial planets and floating cities that are actually in the Sun and other stars.

But they tend to have energy shields and and other kinds of techno-magic that makes living on the sun possible. Note how the city built on the sun looks in the setting chapter. It's not an open-air city.


Ventnor wrote:
Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Ventnor wrote:
Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
Hmm seems like plasma weapons are a weaker weapon choice if one prepares for them. I guess we will have to see how many monsters have resistance to fir and electricity if their demons and devils I feel like plasma is not gonna get you anywhere.

Plasma would be good if you don't know if the thing has Fire or Electricty resistance/immunity, this way you'll know that at least some damage is getting through.

Unless you go up against a Succubus, which is immune to both. Then you're screwed (in probably more ways than one).

Honestly, that doesn't make sense to me.

A succubus immersed into a star's corona should die. Lots of things should.

Nope! :3

Also I'd like to point out that in Pathfinder and Starfinder there are artificial planets and floating cities that are actually in the Sun and other stars.

But they tend to have energy shields and and other kinds of techno-magic that makes living on the sun possible. Note how the city built on the sun looks in the setting chapter. It's not an open-air city.

Those are for the tourists.


It's not clear that fusions that cut through energy resistance cut through energy iimmunity as well. Hopefully Alien Archive clarifies this.


Wow that holy fusion is fantastic as well
damn there's so much good shit

Im liking the options I have as a solarian more and more


MagicA wrote:

well at level 20 you have

dimensional slice longsword: 14d8=avg 64 (727300 credits)
dimensional slice curve blade: 12d10= avg 66 damage (815000 credits)
max level solar weapon with true boson crstyal: 18d6= 63 (80600 credits)

Id say its intermittent cost at best

Also, wow you're right, that kidna sucks for boosting stats
wonder why they did that?

One thing to note they also changed how you naturally gain attribute points as you level. The system makes it pretty easy to bolster lower stats up to decent levels.

Solarians are a bit spread out stat wise though soldiers are a bit easier to figure the path forward. Solar weapon Solarians may wind up picking up heavy armor as one of their feats and not going in very hard on dex. That way you could concentrate more on str and charisma and bolster other stuff as needed.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Holy wrote:
A weapon with the holy fusion becomes blessed with divine energy from a good deity. Any attacks with the fused weapon are good-aligned. Damage from the weapon bypasses DR/good and ignores the energy resistance of evil dragons, evil outsiders, and evil undead. The holy fusion cannot be added to weapons that have the unholy fusion.

Darn, that means immunity can still screw over elemental weapons. Still a strong option but if energy immunity is as prolific as it is in Pathfinder I suspect people using energy weapons will always want to carry a backup of some kind. I'm still going to put Holy on my Solarian's weapon crystal (assuming it applies to the whole weapon) but there will definitely be cases where turning off plasma sheath will result in more damage.

The Exchange

I don't actually have any NPC stats to look at, but do we have any indication that energy immunity will actually be a thing, or something other than reserved for extreme situations? I know we're all used to it in PF, but as I have to keep reminding myself and sometimes others PF and SF are different games. There's no mention of it in the core book despite covering other similar things. And there are a lot of ways to reduce or ignore resistance that don't mention immunity. The way the system appears to work makes me feel like it'd be much more reasonable to give things we'd be used to seeing immunity on energy resist 80 or such. A number that's really high for its CR but still something you might get pass with the right abilities.


*shrugs*


@Darkling36
Hopefully thats the case of having high resistance instead of straight immunity


Fusions allowing alternate elements can sidestep the immunity issue, though. Take a plasma weapon that naturally does half fire/electricity, slap on a sonic and either acid or cold, now you can choose any two of those four to split your damage among.

Liberty's Edge

For what it's worth, in First Contact there's one creature with Cold Immunity (the Bloodbrother) and one with Cold and Electricity Immunity (the Necrovite). Nothing else has immunities, but that is two out of twelve creature stat-blocks.

If the pattern is followed at all closely, running into something immune to your main weapon is gonna be a less than 10% chance in any individual encounter, but still be very definitely possible.

The Exchange

Deadmanwalking wrote:

For what it's worth, in First Contact there's one creature with Cold Immunity (the Bloodbrother) and one with Cold and Electricity Immunity (the Necrovite). Nothing else has immunities, but that is two out of twelve creature stat-blocks.

If the pattern is followed at all closely, running into something immune to your main weapon is gonna be a less than 10% chance in any individual encounter, but still be very definitely possible.

Well that's unfortunate. I'd hoped that after not mentioning immunities and/or how to deal with them in the core book that they would have done something a bit more interesting than being that frequent. I'm guessing people will have to dig for the least frequent immunities then. Its way too expensive to have more than one backup weapon in case the thing you're fighting is immune to your weapons.

That'll be really rough on technomancers too, they don't exactly have any options for what damage their spells deal, no way to change it and few spells within comparable reach of each other.


Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Unless a creature is immune to both Fire and Electricity, Plasma will be useful :3

If robots are common, the double hardness make them inferior to laser and arc weapons. Or a bow, for that matter.


@gustavo Iglesias

Wait what do you mean?


MagicA wrote:

@gustavo Iglesias

Wait what do you mean?

In Pathfinder most robots have hardness, which reduces each form of energy damage. So a hardness 10 robot would reduce 30 points of fire damage to 20 points of damage, but would reduce 30 points of plasma damage (15 each of fire/electricity) to only 10 points of damage.

Darkling36 wrote:


Well that's unfortunate. I'd hoped that after not mentioning immunities and/or how to deal with them in the core book that they would have done something a bit more interesting than being that frequent. I'm guessing people will have to dig for the least frequent immunities then. Its way too expensive to have more than one backup weapon in case the thing you're fighting is immune to your weapons.

That'll be really rough on technomancers too, they don't exactly have any options for what damage their spells deal, no way to change it and few spells within comparable reach of each other.

You don't need a backup weapon, you just need two fusions to completely switch your damage type to something else. Or one to partially diversify.

Blasting is pretty bad and weak even without resistances, technomancers shouldn't be concentrating on it. I'd rather a TM was throwing Slow or some form of battlefield control unless the enemies are actually vulnerable to a particular energy type.


In the question between soldier and solarian, I'm surprised no one's mentioned the zenith revelation Solar Acceleration. Sure it doesn't come online until level 9, but making full attacks as a standard once you reach the third round of combat seems superior to the blitz soldier's Charge Attack upgrade at level 11.

Assuming you're in a game that goes past level 9, Solar Acceleration makes solarian the best option for a full melee build, and the group Haste buff is nothing to sneeze at either.

Am I missing anything here? Because if not I don't see there's much of an argument to be made for soldier, at least as far as melee combat goes.

Liberty's Edge

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The CR 4 Security Robot has no Hardness, as well as an Electricity Vulnerability. I'm betting Hardness ala Pathfinder is not a thing as such.


Space McMan wrote:

In the question between soldier and solarian, I'm surprised no one's mentioned the zenith revelation Solar Acceleration. Sure it doesn't come online until level 9, but making full attacks as a standard once you reach the third round of combat seems superior to the blitz soldier's Charge Attack upgrade at level 11.

Assuming you're in a game that goes past level 9, Solar Acceleration makes solarian the best option for a full melee build, and the group Haste buff is nothing to sneeze at either.

Am I missing anything here? Because if not I don't see there's much of an argument to be made for soldier, at least as far as melee combat goes.

Haste Chips in Armor allow anyone to get haste.

Though I agree that is THE BEST Zenith Revelation


Well the Ray of Light is a another great mobility revelation
being able to move a long distance is nice for melee builds


gustavo iglesias wrote:
Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Unless a creature is immune to both Fire and Electricity, Plasma will be useful :3
If robots are common, the double hardness make them inferior to laser and arc weapons. Or a bow, for that matter.

Bows! Yay!


Deadmanwalking wrote:
The CR 4 Security Robot has no Hardness, as well as an Electricity Vulnerability. I'm betting Hardness ala Pathfinder is not a thing as such.
Nice catch. The writeup of Adamatine Alloy also seems to imply that Robots don't get Hardness anymore either with the way it's written.
Adamantine Alloy wrote:
Adamantine is a starmetal, one of several valuable metals mined from asteroids and planets throughout the universe. Pure adamantine is exceedingly rare and expensive, so weapons using adamantine are always made of an adamantine alloy. Weapons or ammunition fashioned from adamantine alloy overcome the damage reduction of creatures with DR/adamantine, such as many magical constructs, and have a natural ability to ignore hardness when sundering weapons or attacking objects, ignoring hardness less than 30 (see Breaking Objects on page 409). Weapons and ammunition without metal parts can’t be made from adamantine alloy.


Certainly no Hardness will make plasma more interesting, unlike in Iron Gods.

Anyways, I want to check mid to high level enemies to see if resistances are common. If they are, plasma is also a bad choiice


MagicA wrote:

@gustavo Iglesias

Wait what do you mean?

In PF, robots had Hardness,and reduce damage from each attack, even energy.

Plasma does Electricity and Fire. So a 4d6 plasma vs a Hardness 10 robot did on average 2d6-10 fire and 2d6-10 electricity.. normally, 0 and 0. While 4d6 lasers did 4d6-10, which is better.

Bullets and arrows and knives could be adamantine and ignore hardness, making things worse.

It seems SF has chosen other way to go, which is nive


I see
the way they seem to be going is that it makes it more viable to use energy based stuff


So you guys think resistance and immunity will be far less common?

Liberty's Edge

Vidmaster7 wrote:
So you guys think resistance and immunity will be far less common?

Hard to say, really. I suspect it will be somewhat less common, but it's just a suspicion and one with little or no supporting evidence.


What I would like to see in the future is a solarian specific power armor, something that boosts revelations or the like


Any thing let me play solarion version of palpatine is good in my book


Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:
Unless you go up against a Succubus, which is immune to both. Then you're screwed (in probably more ways than one).

Ooh YES! That feels...niiiice. Now, just a little lower, please?

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