I was considering starting a soldier as a secondary character.
I am underwhelmed with the choices.
If I was to take Skill Synergy and add 2 additional skills as class skills, what would you recommend and why?
Bear in mind Char, Int and Wis are likely to have no bonus (or +1 at best) for a while.
OR, should I just accept that the soldier will be a combat-focused character and leave the skills to the rest of the team and not pick up Skill Synergy?
I would pick up perception and another skill with skill synergy. It's nice to notice things before that are on top of you.
As for together skills that are good for a soldier, it kinda going to be somewhat determined by what the party looks like. If you're going to try to add skills you'll likely have higher intelligence than normal so that you can have the extra ranks which makes the intelligence based skills a better choice. I know this is not what you said in your OP, but if skills are something you want to do you'll be investing in it down the road. Life science is a skill only 2 classes get as a class skill normally and it's intelligence based plus it has a combat application (identifying most monsters) so I think it's a good candidate.
Something to consider is what attributes you plan on boosting in the future. If you know you're going to pump Wis for the will save look as sense motive, perception, or mysticism. Charisma is kinda a dead end for a soldier as other than the face skills you don't get any benefit, and those are important skills to a party and so are usually best filled by a specialist.
I would pick up perception and another skill with skill synergy. It's nice to notice things before that are on top of you.
As for together skills that are good for a soldier, it kinda going to be somewhat determined by what the party looks like. If you're going to try to add skills you'll likely have higher intelligence than normal so that you can have the extra ranks which makes the intelligence based skills a better choice. I know this is not what you said in your OP, but if skills are something you want to do you'll be investing in it down the road. Life science is a skill only 2 classes get as a class skill normally and it's intelligence based plus it has a combat application (identifying most monsters) so I think it's a good candidate.
Something to consider is what attributes you plan on boosting in the future. If you know you're going to pump Wis for the will save look as sense motive, perception, or mysticism. Charisma is kinda a dead end for a soldier as other than the face skills you don't get any benefit, and those are important skills to a party and so are usually best filled by a specialist.
I could go for 'Priest' archetype' and pick up Mysticism. Couple that with perception and Life Science, and that should help.
Appreciate the replies.
Yea get Perseption or anything you see your char interested in as a soldier you get lots of feats, but I would also boost pilotin or engineering so you can be more useful in ship combat
Agreed - I did notice their class skills filled some niche starship roles, which helps.
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Grabbing Perception and another skill of your choice is a solid call. Mysticism and Life Science as well is an even more solid one.
In regards to being good at skills in general, you might also consider Skill Focus in a skill or two you have the stats to be good at. Given the sheer number of Bonus Feats you get you can afford to do this fairly readily, especially as a human.
Pilot is a particularly solid call if you're Dex based and lack an Operative or Star Shaman to take that role.
I did that grabbing culture and diplomacy. Also picked up Life Science from the Xenoseeker theme.
Remember, you get 4 (four!) +2's at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. So you can easily bump up those secondary stats and still be decent at the off skills you pick from from Skill Synergy.
Are you building a str or dex soldier? If dex, you can easily keep your str and con low and boost a single mental stat to at least +2 on creation.
I recommend wis, as boosting your will save and perception checks is universally useful no matter what your party is doing.
Are you building a str or dex soldier? If dex, you can easily keep your str and con low and boost a single mental stat to at least +2 on creation.
I recommend wis, as boosting your will save and perception checks is universally useful no matter what your party is doing.
Good points. I haven't gotten that far yet. Is a Dex soldier viable? Most builds I have seen are STR/DEX even (16/16) or close to that.
Good points. I haven't gotten that far yet. Is a Dex soldier viable? Most builds I have seen are STR/DEX even (16/16) or close to that.Are you building a str or dex soldier? If dex, you can easily keep your str and con low and boost a single mental stat to at least +2 on creation.
I recommend wis, as boosting your will save and perception checks is universally useful no matter what your party is doing.
Dexterity Soldier is fine. You either don't need strength, or more likely you take it up to 14 by level 10 so you can use heavy weapons. More than that is completely not necessary.
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Good points. I haven't gotten that far yet. Is a Dex soldier viable? Most builds I have seen are STR/DEX even (16/16) or close to that.Are you building a str or dex soldier? If dex, you can easily keep your str and con low and boost a single mental stat to at least +2 on creation.
I recommend wis, as boosting your will save and perception checks is universally useful no matter what your party is doing.
Dex sharpshooter soldier is probably the most effective combat build in the game right now. Dex is still the god stat, and the sharpshooter gets several to-hit bonuses that makes them the most accurate build for ranged full attacking.
In practical terms, this means the sharpshooter will land more hits than any other class, and when soldiers get triple attack at level 11, it just gets stupidly dominant.
While the strength soldier is fun on paper with its huge DPR and awesome visual imagery, a melee build requires sacrifices. You sacrifice attribute points to maintain a good dex and con and strength, leaving no room for a good mental stat. You sacrifice a lot of full attacks to move into melee with your enemy. You sacrifice a lot of health when the enemy constantly focuses you as the only exposed target while the rest of your party hides behind cover 100' behind you.
A sharpshooter makes none of those sacrifices. The damage they lose from not getting their primary stat to damage is made up for in all the extra attacks they land from being able to full attack on almost every turn of combat.
And with the excess of feats available to a soldier, boosting several skills to be useful out of combat (stealth, pilot, perception, sense motive, ect) is quite easy. It's a brutally effective build.
When clearing out hostile-infested buildings, someone has to be in front. If nobody builds for melee, then an all-ranged team is going to provoke AoOs while doing their huge DPR. Likewise, ranged characters don't get to make their ranged & spellcaster foes provoke AoOs.
I'm not convinced that ranged soldiers pull their weight until level 11, when the campaign may be nearly over. But maybe I'm just overreacting to my level one experiences, where the ranged soldiers don't do more damage yet to make up for their lack of skills.
Of course a party needs a mix of roles to be effective. If a party was all melee they'd have serious problems too. Can't compare roles by saying a party of just one role would suck so it's somehow less valuable based on that logic.
And yes, making any judgement on comparative power at level one is a bad idea. Damage in Starfinder scales significantly as levels increase and more powerful weapons become available. A melee soldier starts heavily front-loaded with 1.5x str to damage at level 1. However, that str damage is hardly going to change as the campaign progresses, while weapons scale rapidly in damage after level 6.
Plus, a ranged soldier is always going to get more attacks per combat than a melee soldier, that's simply the nature of ranged vs melee. Due to the to-hit bonuses available to a ranged soldier, the majority of those hits will land and the ranged soldier will stay equivalent to the melee soldier in damage.
Finally, by level five when a dex soldier has taken some skill feats, they will be doing significantly more than the melee soldier out of combat. A high dex and a good metal stat allow for significantly more valuable skill choices than a melee soldier who must spend many points on str and con, neither of which modify any good skills.