Hi, so I'm the groups regular GM for pathfinder at my schools club and one of my friends wants to try his hand at running a game using Starfinder, He's very familiar with Pathfinder so I'm sure he will do fine and our group is in the process of making characters for his game (We are supposed to have our first session on Thursday but we may end up delaying due to weather where we are)
I want to play a Skittermander Solarian I know that it isn't optimal but I think the idea sounds fun, my only issue I don't really know how to build a Skittermander into this role, my only thing I know for sure is that I wanna be a melee build.
Also there is one houserule you should know, we are using starfinder point buy but we can sell points back get more (like in Pathfinder)
Sorry for the wall of text and thanks for the help guys.
I'd give the Solar Weapon a hard miss, since it's basically worse than just wielding a real advanced melee weapon or several (since you can wield up to 3 two-handers or 6 one-handers before cybernetics), and look into Solar Armor. Is your GM willing to house rule you additional suits of Power Armor?
Probably not he wants to run pretty close to what is in the book since he's new, I could ask though. I'll look into the armor, would it be worth it to give up on heavy armor? probably...hmm...thanks
Oh I should mention we will start at level 2 (not sure why, but whatever it's his game)
Sadly, the powered armor in the book is mostly pretty bad. I think we have an equipment splat due out in..... March? That should help. Powered Armour gives you the Strength you don't want to buy yourself as a Solarian (since you need Charisma if you don't multiclass for RP and Dexterity to dodge wrenches thrown at you), as well as mobility, and is compatible with Light Armor (and hence Solar Armor).
If you're starting at level 2, you can consider the apparently fairly popular solution of Blitz Soldier 1/Solarian X, which not only gets you a bunch of proficiencies in one step, it lets you use your Str or Dex for your RP, and then you can just avoid some or all of the cases where your Revelations care about your Charisma bonus (which only happens for saves, so it's easy to do).
An L2 Skittermander might look like this (not the only option, just an example):
Theme: Mercenary (this example is also compatible with Ace Pilot, Outlaw, and Themeless - you just have to change where the stats come from, they remain the same)
Class/Level: Soldier 1 (Blitz) Solarian 1 (Armor)
Stats:
St18 (+7 point buy, +1 Mercenary)
De15 (+3 point buy, +2 Skittermander)
Co10
In08
Wi10
Ch12 (+2 Skittermander)
Skills (all are Class skills):
Acrobatics Rank 2 (bonus: 7)
Athletics Rank 2 (bonus: 9)
Perception Rank 2 (bonus: 5)
Stealth Rank 2 (bonus: 7, plus at Solarian 3 you will get +1d6)
Feats:
Weapon Focus (Advanced Melee) will serve you all of your days, and you can buy Versatile Focus in the (very unlikely) event you really decide you want to be better with Heavy Weapons and thrown Grenades.
Note: +6 to hit with Melee and Thrown (+7 with the weapons listed below that aren't the Smoke Grenade); +4 to hit with other ranged.
Soldier Class Options: Blitz Fighting Style, Strength as Primary Stat
Solarian Class Options:Solar Armor
Equipment: WBL 2000, access to up to L4 equipment unless your GM tells you otherwise:
Freebooter Armor 1 (750 credits) for EAC/KAC 17/18, or Second Skin armor with IR Sensors (450) for 16/17/Darkvision.
Tactical Doshko (240 credits) for 1d12P damage in melee, and a Tactical Pike (475 credits) for both AoOs and when you need another 5" to reach the enemy (475 credits).
Smoke Grenade (40 credits), at least 1 - you have a +6 to hit with grenades, and they roll against AC 5, meaning you can throw one up to 40 feet and only miss on 1s, or just drop live ones at your feet for concealment and laser cover (which also lets you Stealth). If you have the Second Skin option from above, clarify with your GM if your IR sensors ignore your Smoke Grenade's cloud (i.e. the question is how hot the smoke is - you should see right through cold smoke, room temperature smoke should be mostly transparent but it might be difficult to see anything at room temp or below, such as undead, and hot smoke will block your vision normally).
Optional Weapon: Tactical Starknife with Returning (230), for having a magic weapon on your person and being able to attack ranged targets when you need to; raise the price to 242 if you want an easily movable seal. If you prefer a magical Doshko or Pike, Called, Defiant, and Holy (on the Pike) are all useful.
Industrial Backpack (25)
Spotlight (25) - you're a Skittermander, so you have low-light. With or without the IR sensors, this is 120 feet of concealment-free vision, even in utter darkness - only downside is that you paint a bullseye on yourself - and it's not like you're hard up for hands to hold it. For 100 more credits (they're badly overpriced, so it's probably worth waiting until you're wealthier), you can use a Gear Clamp to stop using any hands at all on this, or you can ask your GM if you can use a 5 credit 10 foot cable to tie it to yourself.
Fire Extinguisher (15) - even more useful at later levels, when you'll be setting everything on fire all of the time.
This should leave you spare change left over to do your own shopping.
There are no rules for embedding Solarian Crystals in armor, so skip those. You are fully qualified to wield a Heavy weapon; you're not focusing on Dexterity, since this is primarily a melee build, so later on in life, you may want at some point to pick one up, just for when melee is completely out of the question. When it's cheap enough to be chump change, you're also a devil with Grapplers on cables, since you can so easily throw so many.
That should give you an idea of where to start. You'll eventually level out of having access to interesting reach weapons for AoOs (as of level 16, all reach weapons have unwieldy), but you'll also level into Curve Blades, which are like the Solarian Weapon you ditched, but with a better damage curve in exchange for being two-handed; longswords have a similar but overall usually superior damage curve, if you want one-handers, but you are also fully qualified to take a pair of cyber-arms when you can afford it, to get to 8 hands, so that should never be a pressing issue. Doshkos will maintain having the best damage curve while being Unwieldy, while Swoop Hammers will have a damage curve in between, with Reach and Blunt damage (for certain fusions, like Disrupting). Starknives will maintain an inferior damage curve while allowing you to use your melee bonuses at range - an L19 starknife is range increment 80 feet! The only Advanced Melee weapons it's important you avoid are Shock Truncheons, as on a crit, they will reliably hurt the wielder, as they don't have Reach but do have Critical Arc.
I'd give the Solar Weapon a hard miss, since it's basically worse than just wielding a real advanced melee weapon or several (since you can wield up to 3 two-handers or 6 one-handers before cybernetics), and look into Solar Armor. Is your GM willing to house rule you additional suits of Power Armor?
This is not true at all. A supped up Solar Weapon is the most power single handed weapon in the game. It can't be sundered or disarmed. Plus you can take it with you anywhere. Slight SPOILER: In Dead Suns there will be times where you won't be able to take your weapons into certain places. What are you going to do if a fight breaks out? Oh yeah, Solarians are always armed.
Plus it is great when thinking about the cost. Are you going to buy all of your melee weapons AND armor? That costs a lot. Solar weapon you only have to worry about armor since your weapon scales.
One last thing, Starfinder is set up different than pathfinder. You can't really two weapon fight anymore. So having more weapons doesn't benefit you at all. Attacking with one weapon is the same as attacking with multiple. If you really want multiple solar weapons just say you do. It doesn't affect anything. At least now.
Skittermanders are great choices for solar weapons.
(As a DM I let my players have 11 points in the beginning since a theme gives you 1 it lets you have even attributes. But subtract one point if you DM doesn't allow this.)
str 14 (only need a +2 at lvl 1 since most skills are Dex based.)
dex 16
con 10
int 10
wis 10
cha 14
Feat: Step Up - This makes it so enemies can't get away from you and you constantly cut them down.
I'd give the Solar Weapon a hard miss, since it's basically worse than just wielding a real advanced melee weapon or several (since you can wield up to 3 two-handers or 6 one-handers before cybernetics), and look into Solar Armor. Is your GM willing to house rule you additional suits of Power Armor?This is not true at all. A supped up Solar Weapon is the most power single handed weapon in the game. It can't be sundered or disarmed. Plus you can take it with you anywhere.
My point is that as a Skittermander, he has no need to limit himself to one-handers, as he has plenty of hands to take a two-hander and still have weapons available, and the Solar Weapon does not keep up with two-handers, with no rules for carrying multiple of them or wielding one 2-handed.
Taking your weapon with you anywhere is very easy to do at higher levels, once you have the wealth to store your weapon in an extradimensional pocket or shrink it down. But in terms of power, at levels 1-4 and 11, a 1-hander (the longsword) is straight-up better than a Solar Weapon, while at level 14, the longsword wins only because its crit is better; meanwhile, at levels 10 (hammer), 16 (hammer), 19 (hammer), and 20 (longsword), the Solar Weapon wins only due to a better crit. For the other levels, you're right, provided the Solarian continues to buy better Crystals, of course, and assuming you can put a Weapon Fusion on a Crystal with no problems. Part of that is due to many levels not having any weapons (or potentially crystals) available, of course.
But with a Skittermander, that all falls apart quickly, since you can afford the handspace for the good stuff, particularly for a build based around charging, since, as a nonSoldier, you don't mind Unwieldy at the end of a charge. At most levels, particularly higher ones, you can always pick up a two-hander for more damage. I expect this to be emphasized even more once we get weapons splats, since the melee weapons tables have huge holes in them (the 2d10 swoop hammer and curve blade are simply missing, for example).
Wow guys thanks for all the advice, my game got delayed till next week due to weather so I'm gonna look more into the info y'all gave me. I really like the idea of blitz first level I hadn't considered it before
Wow guys thanks for all the advice, my game got delayed till next week due to weather so I'm gonna look more into the info y'all gave me. I really like the idea of blitz first level I hadn't considered it before
If you want to follow the other suggestion, just have the Solarian put on Heavy Armor (Soldier provides proficiency), and use the Solar Weapon to save a bit of cash when buying weapons.
There are a couple of Solarians guides in this advice forum you might want to look at that take several different approaches to the class. Just search for Guide in the title.
Soldier 1/Solarian X with a starting 12 Charisma is completely viable, but not the only way to approach the class. Doing so does delay some of your class abilities and basically makes you ignore any ability that keys off charisma or requires a saving throw. For example, a Solarian 2 with 14 starting charisma could choose to already have a standard action charge and deal 3d6+1 (reflex DC 13) with its Supernova. The Soldier 1/Solarian 1 would have +10 foot move speed, +4 initiative, and only deal 2d6+1 (reflex DC 11) with Supernova.
Solar armor vs Solar weapon generally boils down to do you plan on using light armor (then take Solar armor) or do you plan on using heavy armor (then take Solar weapon). Typically Soldier 1/Solarian X uses heavy armor since they get the feat for free, and then chooses to use Solar weapon (even if they don't use it some levels). Worst case its a backup weapon when your main weapon isn't available (disarmed, sundered, left outside of the social function, etc).
Is your GM willing to house rule you additional suits of Power Armor?
Powered Armour gives you the Strength you don't want to buy yourself as a Solarian (since you need Charisma if you don't multiclass for RP and Dexterity to dodge wrenches thrown at you), as well as mobility, and is compatible with Light Armor (and hence Solar Armor).
I feel investing in strength as a melee Solarian is mandatory. Although that investment might start out as 14 at level 1, jump to 16 at 3rd from an augmentation, 18 at level 5, 20 at level 7 from a +4 augmentation, and 22 at level 10. At level 10, the maximum strength you could possibly have is only 24 by starting with 18.
I see relying on Powered armour for your primary combat stat (strength) as a bad idea, because depending on the campaign, there are going to be situations when Powered armour is a disadvantage, or straight up impossible. Most types use a ton of charges (1 per minute to be able to move at all). Most make you large or huge, which is a disadvantage in Starfinder. Most don't fly, and they can't use jetpacks or forcepacks. And they are basically described as gear for infantry in the military. Wearing one in a station is like driving a tank down main street. Lastly, the only one that gives you significantly more strength than you could on your own starting with a modest 14 Strength is the Jarlslayer.
I'll also note that trying to keep light armor, powered armor, 2 advanced melee weapons (unwieldy and not-unwieldy), and a ranged option (Starknife) up to date is going to be expensive, if not outright impossible if your GM goes by wealth by level tables.