Arc Riley |
I've been looking through Armory and am actually a bit disappointed.
It has a ton of options for sure, it certainly fills out all the tier gaps for the weapon types and has a lot of flavor. But for society play..
When I'm level 3 and want a sonic small arm, my choice is between the tier 4 "Sonic pistol, thunderstrike" that does 1d8 or the tier 3 "Sonic suppressor, murmur" that does 1d4, the only reason I'd choose the latter is shortage of credits (about 40% cheaper).
I always expected the tier+1 rule for the CRB was to compensate for later resources being more powerful and in a few books (eg necrografts in AP3) that makes sense - but Armory seems pretty well balanced with the CRB.
Hmm Venture-Captain, Minnesota |
Hmm Venture-Captain, Minnesota |
The Masked Ferret Venture-Agent, Georgia—Atlanta |
pithica42 |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have been skimming the book off and on since Monday (I can't believe I got it 'early' this month, I'm usually one of the last ones).
I think the weapon section is, by far, the most robust and useful part of the book. I was 3 or 4 pages into it when I made the mental decision that it was very much 'worth it' for me. There's stuff spread throughout the book that are all excellent and very little of it seemed in any way 'broken'.
I was honestly disappointed by some of the material, and there's stuff I think the game could still use that the book had none of. That being said, if you're considering buying the PDF, it's absolutely worth the $10. Even if half the content ends up being society legal, that content is easily worth the $10.
Off the top of my head...
-The Soulfire weapon fusion greatly reduces the MAD of the Weapon Solarian class by allowing you to add Charisma to damage with your Solar Weapon. Paired with new level 1 solarian weapon crystals, it potentially doubles the Weapon Solarian's DPR at level 1 while still allowing them to actually have resolve points for only 265cr (total). That's huge.
-The Advanced Melee weapons with the Operative property makes a lot of builds (like melee operatives and mystics) far more viable.
-The weapons with the Profession tags reduce feat taxes.
-The bombarding fusion makes grenade based characters far less expensive, and gives you a reason to have a grenade with a fusion on it.
-New revelations that work only for Armor Solarians are great.
-New soldier style looks fun as heck.
-New operative exploits and style look fun.
-More weapons/armor to pick from greatly helps people 'feel' more unique.
-Technomancers and Mechanics both got a bunch of useful features.
-A bunch of the mundane gear was essential, given that stuff like the datapad seems to be mentioned in every AP/Scenario but never listed a price or what it did.
-Wonder Grenades.
-Summoning Grenades.
-Lots of amazing art to
Off the top of my head...
-Power armor upgrade rules were a bit of a let down. It's way more expensive to upgrade power armor than just heavy (even if you're literally buying new armor every level). It doesn't do anything to make Power armor any less niche. That being said, I do still see uses for it, like making Weapon Solarians even less MAD (they can basically all but dump str now).
-The food stuff was a lot less than what I was wanting. It's basically just 5 paragraphs long. I was hoping for 2-3 full pages.
-The new mystic connection is a load of meh.
-I was really hoping for a way to make Armor Solarians more like weapon solarians (like Solarian Armor crystals, or something), to help flesh them out.
-I was really hoping for something that made non-operative small arm users actually viable. It's a trope in Science Fantasy/Space Opera for everyone to walk around with a side-arm. Noone in this game that doesn't have 'operative' in their class entry does that, which is dissapointing.
-There are ZERO feats in this book.
I think the book, overall, could have definitely used another 20-40 pages of material (and I likely would still feel like something was missing). But, I'd definitely recommend the purchase. I can't wait to sit down with my physical copy and just read.
Arc Riley |
The character options are pretty cool, but the book is primarily about equipment.
My concern is with the CRB's tier+1 bump, much of the weapons and armor in Armory is underpowered when compared to that in the CRB.
For virtually every piece of equipment in the CRB, Armory fails to provide comparably powered equipment at one tier lower. It was clearly written to be balanced with the CRB tier for tier and didn't take into considertaion society's purchasing rules.
pithica42 |
I think that's kind of a good thing, though. If the stuff in armory were equivalent to level+1 gear in the CRB, then the stuff in the next book would likely follow suit and be level+2 and eventually the whole of game balance would be completely out of whack.
I mean, there is some stuff in there...
That is fantastic enough on its own that you wouldn't want it being available early. And there is a lot of low-level utility stuff in there that everyone's going to take as soon as they can afford to.
That being said, we haven't seen the sanctioning document for this yet. Until we do, we have only a vague idea of what will be available from the book, at all, much less when it will be made available.
John Compton Organized Play Lead Developer |
9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I always expected the tier+1 rule for the CRB was to compensate for later resources being more powerful and in a few books (eg necrografts in AP3) that makes sense - but Armory seems pretty well balanced with the CRB.
I want to nip this idea in the bud.
Contents in the Starfinder Core Rulebook are accessible at Level+1 because they are the core mechanics of the game, not because we expected later publications to introduce increasingly powerful options. The Starfinder team continues to outline, create, and develop new character options balanced against the Core Rulebook. If Starfinder Armory seems balanced agains the core, then that's working as intended.
Dracomicron |
Arc Riley wrote:I always expected the tier+1 rule for the CRB was to compensate for later resources being more powerful and in a few books (eg necrografts in AP3) that makes sense - but Armory seems pretty well balanced with the CRB.I want to nip this idea in the bud.
Contents in the Starfinder Core Rulebook are accessible at Level+1 because they are the core mechanics of the game, not because we expected later publications to introduce increasingly powerful options. The Starfinder team continues to outline, create, and develop new character options balanced against the Core Rulebook. If Starfinder Armory seems balanced agains the core, then that's working as intended.
Yeah... power creep is a blight on modern roleplaying games. I don't want more powerful stuff from supplements, I want more options to evoke my creativity when creating characters.
If I want weapons or armor at Level+1 from the Armory, there's an Exo-Guardians boon for that.
trollbill Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne |
John Compton wrote:Arc Riley wrote:I always expected the tier+1 rule for the CRB was to compensate for later resources being more powerful and in a few books (eg necrografts in AP3) that makes sense - but Armory seems pretty well balanced with the CRB.I want to nip this idea in the bud.
Contents in the Starfinder Core Rulebook are accessible at Level+1 because they are the core mechanics of the game, not because we expected later publications to introduce increasingly powerful options. The Starfinder team continues to outline, create, and develop new character options balanced against the Core Rulebook. If Starfinder Armory seems balanced agains the core, then that's working as intended.
Yeah... power creep is a blight on modern roleplaying games. I don't want more powerful stuff from supplements, I want more options to evoke my creativity when creating characters.
If I want weapons or armor at Level+1 from the Armory, there's an Exo-Guardians boon for that.
Just for the record, that won't actually stop power creep, it will only slow it down:
1) Every new element you add to the game increases versatility and versatility is power.
2) Every new element you add to the game has the potential of combining with another element to create a gestalt that is greater than the sum of its parts. Most over-powered options I have seen aren't a single over-powered option, but rather an over-powered combo.
trollbill Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne |
How does that effect power creep caused by the addition of new options? If Weapon A works better in conjunction with Feat B than any other weapon, the fact that Weapon A has multiple tiering that requires you to purchase a new weapon every several levels doesn't change the fact that it still works better with Feat B than any other weapon.
Dracomicron |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, the alternative to power creep is stagnation.
Once you've played the characters you want to play/told the stories you want to tell with the initial material, you're likely done with the game unless there's a steady influx of new stuff to be excited/inspired by.
Nah. You can have new stuff but limit the power creep, with a bit of creativity. The Shock & Awe Soldier style seems like an example. Probably not more powerful than, say, Armor Storm or Blitz, but leaning into status effects to control the battlefield in a different way.
trollbill Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne |
pithica42 wrote:Nah. You can have new stuff but limit the power creep, with a bit of creativity. The Shock & Awe Soldier style seems like an example. Probably not more powerful than, say, Armor Storm or Blitz, but leaning into status effects to control the battlefield in a different way.Well, the alternative to power creep is stagnation.
Once you've played the characters you want to play/told the stories you want to tell with the initial material, you're likely done with the game unless there's a steady influx of new stuff to be excited/inspired by.
The problem here is that the more options you add, the more difficult it becomes to avoid unintended power combos. Eventually, it becomes effectively impossible.
trollbill Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne |
Dracomicron |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I suspect, 'No Power Creep,' is similar to 'balanced classes.' It's something that gamers scream for and looks good on paper, but when it gets implemented, they find out it actually makes the game less fun.
I find games with unbalanced classes and power creep to be significantly less fun, even if it happens to benefit my characters. I don't want to contribute more than the other players, I just want to do my share and make sure everyone has a good time.
The kind of players who want certain classes to be more powerful than others, and for each book to have more powerful stuff than the last book, are a big part of the reason the hobby is toxic at times.
Nefreet |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dracomicron wrote:I find games with unbalanced classes and power creep to be significantly less funWe already have a serious imbalanced class issue.
Whenever a player shows up with an operative, they've exposed themselves as a player who wants to be the best at everything.
*scrunchy face*
I think, as with Pathfinder, or really any roleplaying game, somebody that possesses system mastery is more capable of building a character that can be better at more things than someone who doesn't possess such mastery.
My 18 Int Soldier has as many skill ranks as my 10 Int Operative, has more Stamina and Hit Points, and deals/tanks more damage. But my Operative is often more social than an Envoy.
The "jack of all trades" type of Operative is certainly *useful*, and maybe more versatile than any other class, but every other class can be built to be better at some other focus.
Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Playing with various tables at PaizoCon UK, I found my Korasha melee soldier could easily keep up with the various operatives running around. Reliably punching through monsters' skulls with the crazy damage you get from melee gear boost + Mk2 personal upgrade. And with lashunta skill bonuses, taking skill focus because soldiers have feats to spare, and a decent Intelligence, I can play in the skills game just fine.
trollbill Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne |
Bill Baldwin wrote:I suspect, 'No Power Creep,' is similar to 'balanced classes.' It's something that gamers scream for and looks good on paper, but when it gets implemented, they find out it actually makes the game less fun.I find games with unbalanced classes and power creep to be significantly less fun, even if it happens to benefit my characters. I don't want to contribute more than the other players, I just want to do my share and make sure everyone has a good time.
The kind of players who want certain classes to be more powerful than others, and for each book to have more powerful stuff than the last book, are a big part of the reason the hobby is toxic at times.
The issue with balanced class isn't the actual power issue. 4E went out of its way to try to make all the classes balanced. The problem is, the only true way to do that is to have all the classes function the same way. But when all the classes are the same, what difference does it really make? You end up losing all the flavor for each class that truly makes it if feel unique, and unique is what people really want.
Dracomicron |
Dracomicron wrote:I find games with unbalanced classes and power creep to be significantly less funWe already have a serious imbalanced class issue.
Whenever a player shows up with an operative, they've exposed themselves as a player who wants to be the best at everything.
I have an operative, and she isn't close to the best at everything. She didn't even have Computers until level 2. Mechanics and Technomancers routinely do better at Engineering. Envoys and some Solarians do better at socials. She's a great pilot and handy with a gun, and passable with everything else so she can shore up any party she finds herself in with SFS.
I doubt I'm unique about this. So I think you have an unfair assessment. Operatives are very good in some very obvious ways, but I think that, when you look more closely, they aren't overwhelming.
Regardless, class balance is a very complicated calculation and, while it may be impossible to achieve without power creep in the long term, striving for it is not a bad thing.
Jim H |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I was very excited to get the Armory (especially since Paizo screwed up my subscription and it took me over 3 weeks, 4 e-mails, and several phones calls to get it).
Now that I've gotten it and perused it, it is interesting and I'll definitely dig more.
However, the sheer number of weapons of every type and level just seems silly. I could imagine the creators sitting around in a circle saying, "OK, we need 15 weapons in this group -- what random adjectives should we use this time?"
In particular, I'll bust a gut if, in some adventure the box text says, "You're in a small town XYZ. If you need to buy any weapons or equipment you can." Because it would take a store the size of Ikea to stock all those weapons.
They should really be limited in some way. For example, some could be rare and only available in huge places (like the station). Some could be super duper rare except on the planet they come from.
They also should NOT all be compatible (every one that uses batteries using the same one).
Anyway, so the sheer number of weapons is silly. More than that, it took up a HUGE percentage of the book.
I would have liked a lot more equipment or options of OTHER kinds.
In particular, I would have loved to have multiple options for things that I could put on my mechanic drone, lots more computer options, perhaps more options that would aid on a starship, etc.
Jim
Wei Ji the Learner |
The .pdf looked 'okay' (I'm not a huge fan of .pdf format, it can make me nauseous scrolling back and forth) but my hardcover was rather dodgy and is hopefully in queue to be replaced (out of sequence pages, missing sections).
Will update when a new book arrives.
Micheal Smith |
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Well, I think that was a first. A complaint about there being TOO man weapons. My problem isn’t there are too many weapons but more that’s a lot of the weapons in each category almost seem identical with a slight change.
The whole concept of this book isn’t for CLASS OPTIONS. It is for equipment. The beauty to Starfinder, is we can get a WHOLE book just on starships. More deck layouts weapons etc. Also could realistically get a whole book on Computers if they decided that they want to delve deeper into computers.
The Pact Worlds I felt could have had a lot more player options. Without the aid of Player Companions (thank god) unless they dedicate a whole book to Class options I feel they need to put more Class Options in books like the Armory. I understand that Starfinder is still very new but you have to also introduce new Class options.
I was disappointed with the lack of feats in this book. I felt this really was a good time to introduce some weapons. Either way, the best book to date. Can’t wait to see what the next book will have.
I am also excited to see more from, what I think was the best section of all:
This is very promising. My only issue is it is MORE thing to spend the few credits I have. Especially in Society.
Jim H |
Well, I think that was a first. A complaint about there being TOO man weapons. My problem isn’t there are too many weapons but more that’s a lot of the weapons in each category almost seem identical with a slight change.
The whole concept of this book isn’t for CLASS OPTIONS. It is for equipment. The beauty to Starfinder, is we can get a WHOLE book just on starships. More deck layouts weapons etc. Also could realistically get a whole book on Computers if they decided that they want to delve deeper into computers.
The Pact Worlds I felt could have had a lot more player options. Without the aid of Player Companions (thank god) unless they dedicate a whole book to Class options I feel they need to put more Class Options in books like the Armory. I understand that Starfinder is still very new but you have to also introduce new Class options.
I was disappointed with the lack of feats in this book. I felt this really was a good time to introduce some weapons. Either way, the best book to date. Can’t wait to see what the next book will have.
You're right there are a lot of weapons in each category that seem almost identical. That's because in appears they basically said, "We need a few dozen weapons in each group spread across the tiers." So, they just inched up in the dice and/or special effects and then made up adjectives for them.
It really just seems a bit 'over the top' with little real benefit.
I also noted the very cheap "Pathfinder Backpack" (aka Handy Haversack). That could contribute to real silliness -- why choose which weapons to use -- carry all of them.
I get that equipment was the focus of this book, but it was a bit disappointing. Compare it to your "Ultimate Equipment (UE)." UE is 400 pages and weapons make up only 31 pages (probably about 50 if you count magical weapons) of that, so about 15%.
Armory is only 164 pages and weapons tables and explanations make up 60 pages of that (about 35%). While that means there are a HUGE number of weapons, it means we got a WHOLE lot less of other stuff.
Perhaps part of my frustration is that the (seeming) overemphasis on weapons that are almost identical suggests that the primary focus of the game is poring over the books to find the exact optimal combination of skills and weapons to do the most damage in every situation, role-playing be hanged.
I was also hoping that they'd introduce (physical) shields -- riot shields, etc. They keep adding swords and axes to a world where you could get shot before you get within 50', so they obviously want melee to be a big part of the game. So why not shields? Does that make it seem to "medieval?" But axes don't?
Micheal Smith |
So comparing UE and Armory is a stretch. Ultimate Equipment suggests and emphasis on equipment. Armory on the other hand is more emphasis on what is kept in an Armory. Traditionally speaking Armory is the storage of weapons and accessories for the weapons.
Also the concept to the Armory was to fill in the missing gaps of weapons in the Core.
Now the issue with adding swords addaxes to a world where you can get shot before you get within 50 feet already is the wrong mind frame. Because the system doesn't truly allow for that. So that really isn't something to go on about.
I felt this should have been a MUCH bigger book. So I think they are going more for quality then quantity. But that may not be the case. At the same time the smaller books are easier to carry.
For what it is worth I felt the book was really good. Overall I felt the hype for this book was a major let down. I was expecting so much more.
One of my BIGGEST issue with the book is reprinted material. I HATE reprints. I really feel like that anything printed in the Adventure Paths should have their OWN compendium of player options. I feel cheated when I buy 2 source material with the same exact items.
Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |
I feel like they've saddled themselves with "having" to make a lot of items to fill gaps by creating gaps in the first place. If they'd posted a dice/level/price progression for making a more advanced version of any weapon, that could have cut a lot of room.
And I'm somewhat on the other side of reprints. I like my material nice and centralized; if I'm buying "Armory" I expect it to have all the relevant weaponry in it. I don't want to as a player have to buy AP chapters to get items from it if I'm not planning to actually GM that AP.
Micheal Smith |
Ultimate equipment was largely a compilation of.. what.. 5 years of people coming up with stuff? It's not reasonable to expect starfinder to put out that kind of volume of miscellany in 1.
5 years worth of stuff. It kind of is unreasonable to do that. Starfinder has only been out for a little over 1 year. Also it seems that Paizo is putting out the smaller books for Starfinder. As much as I want MORE content for Starfinder I also don't want them to put too much out to fast.
That is I why I stated that I wanted them to do a compendium of all player items in a book. This way people who want to buy just the player options can. When you reprint stuff in MULTIPLE books like they do, you make someone buy something twice as well take up space for new things. The adventurer's guide was ridiculous.
I do like the idea of having a dice/level/price progression system. I am not really a fan of having to buy and resell weapons every so often to try and stay with the power curve. I have an Android at 4th still rocking item level 1 laser rifle. The amount of money you receive is low. Right now I either choose to upgrade my weapon or buy some other items. I can't do both.
Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |
Micheal Smith |
For the record, my level 7 soldier is still using level 1-2 weapons because they work just fine. I stab people with a starknife for 1d4+16. I could spend about 9K to upgrade that to 4d4+16 but armor upgrades have done so much more for me.
I had the feeling this might be the case. There is really one thing I want to be legal in society.
The gf is looking to make a pretty sweet sniping character. Basically a descendant of a character in Pathfinder. She really loves the snipers.
Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |
Basically, higher-level weapons are soooo expensive, they're not really cost-effective. Armor is barely useful because enemy to-hit scales really fast. If you're playing with armor above tier (like when wearing L8 armor playing down in the 5-6 tier) it does stop some hits but that's the exception. The real goal of armor is providing armor upgrade slots.
Now, the DR 5/- upgrade is amazing. And the jetpack, because easy flight. I'm thinking third will be cold+fire resistance 5.