
Karmagator |

This is one of the things where I think SF2 and PF2 will differ the most at first glance. Ranged weapons most of all. Overall, it is way too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but it is fun to speculate and think. For example, I'd like on-hit damage for ranged weapons to be higher than in PF2. Because when we follow the same health curve and ranged combat is the norm, then with the PF2 paradigm fights are probably going to go on longer, as your overall damage is lower.
What we have seen so far is pretty tame but also treads new ground. I'm only focusing on the martial weapons for now, because that's your primary lineup.
The rotolaser is a two-handed weapon with d8 F for 10 shots/2 uses of Automatic Fire per reload. Low ammo, low-ish damage. Effective range is a 15/20ft cone for "normal" operation with the Soldier, which is basically nothing. Even regular Strike range is only 30/40, which is still poor. Sure, you can also Strike with it, but the Soldier's Stikes are anemic at best and you don't have the ammo for it, especially after using your usual area attack skill (as it is an attack). Overall, this weapon is pretty bad no matter how you look at it. I'd say this is below what we should expect as the norm.
The stellar cannon is still 2-handed, but has better damage at d10 with a better damage type (piercing), which is amplified by being aoe damage (that +1 average damage per damage die comes in multiple times). Much, much better range and area at a 10ft burst in 50/60ft. Projectile/Usage is weird as it basically has 4 uses per reload, so making it 4/1 would be easier. But still, double the ammo as far as the Soldier is concerned. Sure, unwieldy and an area fire weapon, but the former really doesn't seem to matter for the Soldier (which is good) and the latter isn't a big deal for the Soldier either. Basically, if Primary Target ignores both, then this weapon is essentially an objective upgrade over the rotolaser. When taken on it's own in the context of the Soldier class, this sounds like a very powerful weapon and something I'd like to see more of.
Whatever weapon the Operative in the recent blog post was using had an identical crit damage profile to the PF2 arquebus. Add unwieldy (probably) and a decent mag size instead of 1 shot/reload (presumably) and I think that looks decent. Well, as long as your single big "pot of damage" is big enough, so we avoid the Gunslinger problem.
All in all, I think we are mostly headed in the right direction, but things except the stellar cannon could use a little more spice!

OrochiFuror |
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Likely to get higher weapon dice for ranged compared to PF2, but the big difference is probably going to be magazine size, not having to reload all the time so you can instead put damage out and do something else.
Melee will still likely be the only d12 and have stat to damage. Can't imagine them having multiple dice for any basic weapon, would be nice though.
Hopefully with interesting traits and functions the weapons will be more interesting to use then just thinking about what die it has. If we don't get a slew of new traits and abilities like beast weapons, then it will be very stagnant.