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I been asking about using Mysticism for computers and/or engineering on an eoxian ship (or ship with a eoxian computer), this is because on the scenario "Into The Unknown" you can use it in say scenario to operate the computer of a ship you board, I wonder if they mean to make this a thing so mystics could have an easier time in starship combat
Our Mystic likewise struggles a little to have a strong fit for starship combat. Interesting idea - simple, and minimal disruption, but offers an opportunity.
Yeah, I think starship combat definitely needs another look-over, as right now certain character concepts are basically dead-weight in Starship combat. Hopefully we get some official options to help strength and wisdom based characters on starships soon, though in the mean time, I may start allowing Mysticism for magical computers in my home games.
If you could use it to be an engineer would be nice, but a science officer... wouldn't be that much different from doing nothing.
If he's got at least a +2 in DEX, tell him to spend ranks in piloting and just man one of the guns (don't forget to always let him have one of the computer bonuses).
But I believe a Starship book will eventually come up with a role that uses Mysticism, and find something more useful for the other roles as well, outside of the pilot and gunner.
Meanwhile, some people down in Homebrew came up with one or two ideas along those lines.
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Thing with a starfinder mystic is you gain spell levels so slowly and you have free stat bumps and cheap augments that you can start with a 12 wisdom and easily keep pace with the minimum you need for the extra spells. You only need to pump your wisdom if you want to mindblast people. You also don't need con nearly as badly as you did in past systems.
So you can very easily afford a little int and use your theme and or skill synergy to snag a starship role as a class skill.
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Thing with a starfinder mystic is you gain spell levels so slowly and you have free stat bumps and cheap augments that you can start with a 12 wisdom and easily keep pace with the minimum you need for the extra spells. You only need to pump your wisdom if you want to mindblast people. You also don't need con nearly as badly as you did in past systems.
So you can very easily afford a little int and use your theme and or skill synergy to snag a starship role as a class skill.
It's not that it's impossible to build a mystic that can succeed in starship combat, it's that certain characters that are otherwise completely viable have very little to contribute in what the game generally assumes to be a regular occurrence. A mystic that does rely on mind-blasting is going to be at a marked disadvantage, as would one who focuses on strength in order to go a melee route. These sorts of builds are viable by all other metrics of the game, but because Starship combat rewards a fairly narrow band of specializations, they sort of feel like trap options.
I've run into a similar issue with a melee soldier in our group. He's got plenty of Strength and Con, and is a real boon in combat and out, but in Starship combat, the crew feels like it's practically a man short.
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/239322/Starships-Stations-and-Salvage-G uide?src=hottest_filtered&filters=45669_0_0_0_0 we included several bays and options for magic powered weapons and defensive equipment.
That is not the proper way to create a link.
Thing with a starfinder mystic is you gain spell levels so slowly and you have free stat bumps and cheap augments that you can start with a 12 wisdom and easily keep pace with the minimum you need for the extra spells. You only need to pump your wisdom if you want to mindblast people. You also don't need con nearly as badly as you did in past systems.
So you can very easily afford a little int and use your theme and or skill synergy to snag a starship role as a class skill.
It's not that it's impossible to build a mystic that can succeed in starship combat, it's that certain characters that are otherwise completely viable have very little to contribute in what the game generally assumes to be a regular occurrence. A mystic that does rely on mind-blasting is going to be at a marked disadvantage, as would one who focuses on strength in order to go a melee route. These sorts of builds are viable by all other metrics of the game, but because Starship combat rewards a fairly narrow band of specializations, they sort of feel like trap options.
I've run into a similar issue with a melee soldier in our group. He's got plenty of Strength and Con, and is a real boon in combat and out, but in Starship combat, the crew feels like it's practically a man short.
My group had this problem. We had a mystic who wanted to focus on mind blasting, and I was playing a melee Solarion. Starship combat felt like we we're 2 players short and it was absolutely awful.
I'e rebuilt my solarion as a soldier, with engineering, and the mystic is rebuilding as a operative.
I thought the same so when Edward Moyer was writing the rules for Starships, Stations and Salvage Guide (our 3PP Starfinder supplement), I made sure we included ways that mystics and technomancers would have something to do on a starship.
We created spell-primed faculties, which work something like fusions for weapons and defensive capabilities, like converting a spell slot into bonus damage die for a given weapon and bonus based on level of spell sacrificed.
If your mystic or technomancer is the captain of the ship, and the ship can include an arcane chair on the bridge, bonuses to any one starship position can be applied (piloting, gunnery, science scan checks, etc.) Working like a spelljammer helm in that way.
Although it is expensive BP wise, if you spend a bay slot for spell-primed arcane bay, and a spell-primed auxillary shield bay, the ship can perform a number of special arcane defense maneuvers, including but not limited to - invisibility, greater invisibility, non-detection, holographic image (which works like mirror image, number of duplicates based on tier of ship), even a limited blink ability that lets you roll a d6 to determine the hex facing, then roll another d6 to determine which hex the ship blinked to... and other abilities.
Yes, it's 3PP so something you cannot do in a society game, but if you're running something more homebrew, these can be options for your game.
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It's not that it's impossible to build a mystic that can succeed in starship combat, it's that certain characters that are otherwise completely viable have very little to contribute in what the game generally assumes to be a regular occurrence.
Isn't a perfectly viable character that can't participate in something thats a regular occurrence a bit of a contradiction?
I really feel for the melee solarion (so.. the solarion), they don't have the skillpoints and are already MAD as hell*. But they have a full bab and need some dex for AC anyway so should be good enough to be a gunner.
The strength soldier should have full BAB and a few points in dex , enough to be a gunner.
The mystic has 6 skill points per level and one feat gets them class skills in potentially 2 different starship roles. With the fixed starship dcs you can reliably hit the DC with class ranks, trained, and a decent ability modifier.
*and they're not gonna take it anymore
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It's not that it's impossible to build a mystic that can succeed in starship combat, it's that certain characters that are otherwise completely viable have very little to contribute in what the game generally assumes to be a regular occurrence.
Isn't a perfectly viable character that can't participate in something thats a regular occurrence a bit of a contradiction?
I really feel for the melee solarion (so.. the solarion), they don't have the skillpoints and are already MAD as hell*. But they have a full bab and need some dex for AC anyway so should be good enough to be a gunner.
The strength soldier should have full BAB and a few points in dex , enough to be a gunner.
The mystic has 6 skill points per level and one feat gets them class skills in potentially 2 different starship roles. With the fixed starship dcs you can reliably hit the DC with class ranks, trained, and a decent ability modifier.
*and they're not gonna take it anymore
Note I said that they were "otherwise" viable. My point is that these builds feel like trap options.
It's not difficult to make sure you can contribute in Starship combat, but doing so does limit your character choices a bit, and in my opinion it does so unnecessarily. A dex-based ranged soldier and a strength-based melee one are pretty well balanced against each other, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, but in Starship combat the dex-based soldier is now 3-4 points more accurate as a gunner, while the strength soldier has no equivalent role they can excel at.
Similarly with a Mystic versus a Technomancer. A Mystic who focuses on pumping their saves is usually going to have a +2 at best in a Starship-relevant ability. Meanwhile the save-based Technomancer gets to use their Int for 2 of the main roles, one of which they have built in skill bonuses for. If that Mystic is building for melee combat, they're not even going to have the feats to spare to catch up to the Technomancer until later in their career.
The game's certainly not broken, but allowing more players to find a niche on a starship that synergizes with their build without needing extraneous investment would be a welcome change.
I don't know if my group is doing ship combat right. Should every ship to ship combat end in a win where you ship is basicly a working derelict afterwords with only a few ship hitpoints left?
You're group is doing better than mine. We barely won our first space combat and lost the rest. There's been a lot of the GM making up reasons why we don't die horribly.
How your ship is built also has a huge influence... try to get the ship stats and post it.
It would be nice if I was purvey to such information but I'm not.
That's odd, but some GMs are odd.
Take a picture of the sheet next session...
Also the starship combat system has some issues of swarms vs one player ship simply due to the action economy. Unless you have a big ship with a lot of gunners most ship fights I have seen have more issues vs swarms than vs a single opponent that is even slightly tougher than the party.
Also the GM may be trying to do CR in ship combat as they do in normal combat which is going to wind up with fights that are much harder than they should be in general.
This is because people got used to Pathfinder's CR system...which didn't fair so well compared to Starfinder's in terms of accuracy.
A CR 2 fight against a CR 2 party is actually relatively challenging. Not a damn cakewalk like it is in Pathfinder. In Pathfinder my group regularly takes on CR+2 challenges without it even being remotely challenging (very optimized play). In Starfinder a CR+2 fight can be deadly.
This is because people got used to Pathfinder's CR system...which didn't fair so well compared to Starfinder's in terms of accuracy.
A CR 2 fight against a CR 2 party is actually relatively challenging. Not a damn cakewalk like it is in Pathfinder. In Pathfinder my group regularly takes on CR+2 challenges without it even being remotely challenging (very optimized play). In Starfinder a CR+2 fight can be deadly.
To be fair, it does explicitly say that in the rules. Page 326:
Challenge
Combat between starships of equal tiers is more evenly matched than a fight between PCs and opponents of an equal CR. Usually, there is only one PC ship in the fight, containing the entire party. This means that if the battle is lost, the PCs might be taken captive or perish. As a result, starship combats where the PCs face off against a ship of equal tier and capability are very difficult. Most encounters should be against ships of a lower tier. Use the following table as a guideline.
Some character classes have an easier time in starship combat than others.
Mystics get bluff, diplomacy and intimidate as class skills. They can be reasonable Captains and face characters if they focus on Diplomacy and either of Bluff or Intimidate.
Star Shaman Mystics get Piloting as a class skill. Ace Pilot theme would also give it as a class skill. That plus a Dex allows them to be reasonable gunners or pilots.
Since the class skill bonus doesn’t apply to Gunnery checks, just investing in Piloting skill and Dex is enough for that.
Roboticist and Cyberborn themes from Pact Worlds would give Computers as a class skill, allowing them to be Science Officer.
Xenoarcheologist theme from Pact Worlds would give Engineering as a class skill, allowing them to work in Engineering.
As others noted, you could also spend a feat to allow you to get two skills as class skills.
You have to build for it, but there are ways to make a Mystic that is reasonable at one position in Starship combat. It would be more difficult to have them be able to fill multiple roles.
Since others mentioned the Solarian, they have the ability to make any two skills into class skills. Use one of those to pick up something to do in spaceship combat.
Since others mentioned the Solarian, they have the ability to make any two skills into class skills. Use one of those to pick up something to do in spaceship combat.
It helps some, but it's not really sufficient.
At only 4 skill points, and no class reason to invest in INT, and already needing str, dex, and charisma it's difficult to also invest in int to do one of the important starship roles.
The most easily suited for the solarion class is captain...but I wouldn't consider the captain an essential role. And has bad overlap with your aforementioned Mystic build and Envoys.
Without ability modifiers to support the skill, class skill alone is insufficient.
I rebuilt my solarion into a soldier with engineering. I still don't have INT to boost it, but I have "extra" feats compare to my previous build so I'm able to pickup Skill Focus to offset it.
For the solarion the main problems are that the most important roles in Starship combat are:
1) Pilot
2) Gunner
3) Engineer
None of which have attributes that are supported by a normal melee character build. Those are dex and int based, and the Solarion would value Str > Cha > Dex followed by everything else.
The importance of engineering over science really only applies to very low level ships. By the time you start dealing with tier 6 or 8 ships that are actually built for combat, a normal hit is somewhere between 8d4 and 10d8 damage, and rotating shields instead of just slowly diverting power to them becomes a much more useful ability.
And a lot of sci DCS are low enough post-errata that you can have a decent success rate with just skill ranks, and sensor bonus.
At higher levels engineer still remains important because you need to recharge you shields. However, at higher levels science also becomes important as you will need to rebalance shields from a strong zone to a weak one as fixing your shields wont repair enough damage.
I'm not saying engineering becomes useless, just that engineering alone becomes a less potent defense and science becomes much more important than it is at level 1.
I wasn't talking about being able to dominate in a role for starship combat. I was talking about making a character that can do a reasonable job.
I agree that Mystic and Solarian have the worst time of it. You have a choice, be useless in starship combat or pick a position and invest in it.
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For the solarion the main problems are that the most important roles in Starship combat are:
1) Pilot
2) Gunner
3) EngineerNone of which have attributes that are supported by a normal melee character build.
Solarian has a base attack bonus equal to its level, so it seems like they would be well-suited (aside from favoring Strength over Dex) in filling a gunnery role. Keep in mind that someone using Piloting for gunner only gets their skill ranks, not their full Piloting modifier ... so things like Skill Focus, Operative's Edge, etc., don't apply to gunnery checks. Not that they'd necessarily be the best gunner - a Dex-based Soldier would consistently outperform them, and a high-Dex Operative would generally be a bit ahead ... but the Operative, at least, could likely fill other roles that are short-handed, while the Solarian stays focused on firing weapons.
You might think so, but since anyone who invest ranks in piloting can substitute that for BAB it makes it less important to be full BAB for starship combat. The dex modifier actually becomes the harder part to work with.
Any character that isn't focusing on melee combat and invests in piloting will outperform a melee solarion as a gunner. Mostly because skill ranks are "cheaper" than increasing your dex (on a strength focused build). And because the default combat style is dex based, so it's most characters secondary ability stat, and the primary is determined by class. Except solarions, which need str and cha first.
Not to mention, being the 3rd best gunner on a ship, at least at low levels, pretty much means the only time you're shooting is when your pilot screwed up the ship's position relative to the best arcs of fire, or you're fighting more than one opponent at a time.
If the party has enough downtime and ownership of the ship, I'd suggest docking it and removing some of the weapons to make BP for more turret mounts and weapons.
2 or 3 turret weapons, although quite a weak spot, can really improve the outcome of a battle and give something for all gunners to do.
Not to mention, being the 3rd best gunner on a ship, at least at low levels, pretty much means the only time you're shooting is when your pilot screwed up the ship's position relative to the best arcs of fire, or you're fighting more than one opponent at a time.
If the party has enough downtime and ownership of the ship, I'd suggest docking it and removing some of the weapons to make BP for more turret mounts and weapons.
2 or 3 turret weapons, although quite a weak spot, can really improve the outcome of a battle and give something for all gunners to do.
It is astounding how much a difference tweaking the ship some can make.
Our first two starship combats in Deadsuns were abysmal. But after the second one we had a chance to retrofit the ship you receive (Sunrise Maiden, IIRC) and it made a huge difference in the effectiveness of the ship just by changing few things around. One of the major things we did was get rid of the port and starboard weapons, place a second weapon on the turret, give ourselves a missile weapon on the front, and PD weapon on the back. We also increased on power core for better shield recharge and the ship computer to give more bonuses to people.
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I gotta say my mystic is awesome in Starship Combat. We're playing the Dead Suns AP and currently Level 7.
Halfling Star Shaman (Mystic/Class) Pilot (Theme)
STR 9, DEX 20 (Mk I), CON 12, INT 12, WIS 22 (Mk II), CHA 12
He got Piloting from his Theme, and picked up Diplomacy & Culture as class skills at Level 1 with the Skill Synergy Feat.
At 7th Level, he has:
Acrobatics +11
Athletics +5
Bluff +5
Culture +13
Diplomacy +13
Disguise +5
Engineering +5
Life Science +5
Mysticism +16
Perception +20
Piloting +18 (plus gets the Pilot Theme specials) Also took Sky Jockey at Level 7, so +1 speed in Starship Combat
Sense Motive +14
Stealth +7 (no ranks, just raw ability)
Survival +10
He took 1 level of Soldier along the way and has proficiency and specialization in a wide range of weapons, and Weapon Focus in Sniper Weapons. He's one level behind on spell-casting, but participates fully in combat using a Sniper Rifle with a +11 to hit.
So slightly behind on spells, but good ranged combat and he's pretty much the best pilot in the group (the Operator ties him or maybe edges him out in raw pilot skill, but the Operator doesn't have the Pilot Theme specials and in any case is a lot more useful as the ship engineer).
And I love playing Halflings! I made his homeworld a Halfling Caravan Fleet. So no planetary bonus language, but he knows a little about every port of call as he's probably been there with the Caravan. At least enough to know where to find the spaceport, dives and shops, and basic planetary data.
Some mystics can be built for spaceship combat GOD LEVEL DAKKA.
But I think every mystic can be tweaked slightly to participate in it.
Starshamans can make good pilots, but outside of them other mystics don't have an easy time of it. If the operative in your group had decided to focus on being a pilot, you would have a hard time contributing to another role.
Anyone who can pilot will also be a reasonable gunner.
Star Shamans can actually give Operatives a run for their money since they get their Connection Skill bonus to piloting. They will be +6 at 17th level, Operatives wait until 19th level to get that high an insight bonus.
Starshamans can make good pilots, but outside of them other mystics don't have an easy time of it. If the operative in your group had decided to focus on being a pilot, you would have a hard time contributing to another role.
put 2 points into int, or one of your skill points, and either your theme or half of a feat to make it a class skill.
That is a very easy time of it you just have to do it. I'm at a loss as to what mystic build wouldn't have enough room for that.
It doesn't happen automatically, you have to do it. Thats the only difference.
The solarion has a legitimate gripe that they're hard up for stat points.
Starshamans can make good pilots, but outside of them other mystics don't have an easy time of it. If the operative in your group had decided to focus on being a pilot, you would have a hard time contributing to another role.And our ship would explode because we'd have no engineer.
I understand what you're saying, but that is basically what happened to my group.
Our Envoy and Mechanic (read as skill monkeys) of the group decided to play captain and pilot. Leaving the solarion (myself) and the mystic to try to fill the other roles on the starship. This should have resulted in the death of our characters, but the GM came up with a deux ex machina why it didn't.
I have now rerolled as a Soldier with skill focus engineering and the Mystic has rerolled as an Operative. I was also able to afford to invest a bit in int since I don't need strength, charisma, and dex first. And being able to get even 1 extra skill point per level is pretty huge.
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See all of you show what the mystic has to add to be good in space ship combat, but this is extra to him, what I think is that he should not be force to take a theme, dip or use feat to be viable in space ship combat. All other classes have default class skills that work on space ship combat all they need do is spend a skill point, but a mystic needs to have a decent dex (may also need to spend skill in piloting to be an ok gunner) or have to spend resources as I mentioned. So if a hybrid computer is added to the ship or the ship itself be a hybrid magic/thecnology construct, at which point the mystic can use his mysticism on computers or possibly even engineering skills
Soldiers need to invest in Dex to be good at Gunnery. If they go for engineering, they will want to invest a feat into Skill Focus in order to get an insight bonus.
Solarians have even more of a problem because they have one more attribute (Charisma) to invest in than Soldiers. Sidereal Influence doesn’t work in combat, so to get an insight bonus they would also have to invest a feat in Skill Focus but do not get nearly as many feats as a Soldier.
The Mindbreaker mystic connection gives an insight bonus to Intimidation and Bluff, which are both useful to a Captain in Starship combat. Overlord gives it in Diplomacy and Intimidation. Star Shaman gives it in Piloting.
I do think that picking a role in Starship Combat is hardest for the Solarian and Mystic. That doesn’t mean this is a problem with the class.
Soldiers need to invest in Dex to be good at Gunnery. If they go for engineering, they will want to invest a feat into Skill Focus in order to get an insight bonus.
That's exactly what I did, but it didn't feel like much of a problem because the soldier gets so many feats.
I always feel that the space combat is completely uncoupled from the class system.
No class has a specific ability which makes it the best Pilot, Gunner or Engineer. Especially with rules like "Pilot ranks or BAB, whichever is higher", everyone can become a valuable member of the crew.
Of course you have to want it.
If you don't want to invest in becoming a valuable crew member, you don't become one, no matter the class.
Note: Mechanics kind of are the "best" are engineering (along with an Operative that chooses to specialize in it) due the class scaling insight bonus.
Pilot and Gunner don't really belong to any class, although Star Shamans and Operatives again can specialize into it.
Gunner is really the only thing that doesn't have a class who can specialize into it harder than anyone else.