Class Preview: The Mystic

Space wizards! Or clerics!

One thing I like is that "the Force" is a valid answer to the question "where does your magic come from?"

Space wizards! Or clerics!

One thing I like is that "the Force" is a valid answer to the question "where does your magic come from?"

Did you see Star Wars The Clone Wars , the later season in particular? "The Force" is exactly where magic comes from.

Outstanding this class sounds awesome!

Plus the best art so far for Starfinder in my opinion.

The art direction for Starfinder has been spot on.

Ooh! Looks like the mystic owes a lot to the psychic moreso than other caster classes - my party's Rapport psychic player in particular will be pleased.

That backlash ability looks fun. Reminds me a lot of Guild Wars' Mesmer profession, which was tremendous fun as a crowd control/shutdown class.

The mystic selects from the akashic, empath, healer, mindbreaker, overlord, or star shaman connection, which grant powers ranging from access to the Akashic Record to the power to explode heads.

Best part.

How did I miss that!

There are options for players who want to add just a little magic to their character (ranging from the Connection Inkling and Psychic Power feats to the phrenic adept archetype, which can be accessed by any class), but significant magical ability is primarily in the hands of the mystic and technomancer classes....

Mystics' studies also grant them access to mystic spells, ranging from 0-level to 6th level, which represent a significant part of their power.

So, if the mystic is one of the two primary spellcasting classes and it only gets spells up to 6th level, does Starfinder magic perhaps only go up to 6th level? Does anyone know if this has been touched on? Not that I mind if that is the case; I tend to prefer 6-level spellcasters anyway and I think it'd be an interesting and appropriate move for the system and setting.

Come on August!!

Space Occultist

#Iapprove

Quote:

There are options for players who want to add just a little magic to their character (ranging from the Connection Inkling and Psychic Power feats to the phrenic adept archetype, which can be accessed by any class), but significant magical ability is primarily in the hands of the mystic and technomancer classes....

Mystics' studies also grant them access to mystic spells, ranging from 0-level to 6th level, which represent a significant part of their power.

So, if the mystic is one of the two primary spellcasting classes and it only gets spells up to 6th level, does Starfinder magic perhaps only go up to 6th level? Does anyone know if this has been touched on? Not that I mind if that is the case; I tend to prefer 6-level spellcasters anyway and I think it'd be an interesting and appropriate move for the system and setting.

Come on August!!

Both casting classes only go up to six, but that doesn't mean full casters won't happen later. I believe 9th level spells will be in the book, for instance. With full casters, the focus is on their magic, and there's not a lot of room for extra class features.

Seems a nifty catch-all for a certain flavor of caster...

I'm gonna rock at least one of these.

So, is the Phrenic Adept archetype the only archetype that will be in the book, then? After all, we were told during the Humble Bundle interviews that their was only going to be one archetype in the book. Or has that number maybe changed since that interview?

Also, Priest theme confirmed.

I'm gonna guess that Keskodai is a Healer Mystic with the Priest theme.

There's an archetype called the phrenic adept. So a Phrenic Adept (from sionic bestiary) could take levels in that archetype and also the adept npc class and the phrenic template from 3.5 to become....

A Phrenic Phrenic Adept Prenic Adept Adept.

(Who needs a connection power to explode heads when you can do it with just this?

So, is the Phrenic Adept archetype the only archetype that will be in the book, then? After all, we were told during the Humble Bundle interviews that their was only going to be one archetype in the book. Or has that number maybe changed since that interview?

Also, Priest theme confirmed.

I'm gonna guess that Keskodai is a Healer Mystic with the Priest theme.

I'm pretty sure it is. This somewhat alters my plans.

Yeah, I seem to recall someone on the dev team saying you could make any class psychic...phrenic adept archetype seems to be the way they're doing that. Interesting...

6 skillpoints per level. This makes me hopeful for no 2 skillpoint classes.

I like the way the mystic is being described. Makes it feel very customizable to your own liking.

Phrenic Adept archetype is exciting.

The two feats are also very interesting.

As for the class itself: Cool. I like the idea of connections, I'm assuming they work like witch patrons- themes for abilities while the actual thing is pure flavor the player creates. Wasn't looking at the Mystic, but just might try one at some point now. Very nice.

Yes Soldier is coming up next week, one of the two I've been waiting for.

Hmmm...I wonder if we'll get more core classes for Starfinder in later supplements.

Hmmm...I wonder if we'll get more core classes for Starfinder in later supplements.

It might take a while, but I'm fairly certain there will be more.

So, is the Phrenic Adept archetype the only archetype that will be in the book, then? After all, we were told during the Humble Bundle interviews that their was only going to be one archetype in the book. Or has that number maybe changed since that interview?

Also, Priest theme confirmed.

I'm gonna guess that Keskodai is a Healer Mystic with the Priest theme.

It's possible that for the Starfinder classes, the role often played by archetypes in Pathfinder is instead played by specializations, and 'archetype' is something else altogether.

Yes!

What I love about Pathfinder is the sheer versatility and the customization possible for everything. It's good to see Starfinder will keep that spirit. I don't mind the lack of archetypes because of the new themes and class options.

Huh. I like how 2 people can make a priest themed healer mystic of Sarenrae, exact in every mechanical way, yet one could claim she was given the powers by her deity, while the other gained his powers from something else, like innate ability or a lab experiment,and found salvation in the goddess, thus dedicating his life. Both are very different, yet still are completely viable

Ashanderai wrote:

So, is the Phrenic Adept archetype the only archetype that will be in the book, then? After all, we were told during the Humble Bundle interviews that their was only going to be one archetype in the book. Or has that number maybe changed since that interview?

Also, Priest theme confirmed.

I'm gonna guess that Keskodai is a Healer Mystic with the Priest theme.

It's possible that for the Starfinder classes, the role often played by archetypes in Pathfinder is instead played by specializations, and 'archetype' is something else altogether.

No, that is not the case here. They already addressed archetypes in the Twitch interview. This is from the transcript of that interview:

We are doing something different and new with archetypes. Owen here put this idea in his brain and crunched it around and came out with this exciting system where, there will be archetypes, they will technically be for all classes. They'll be generalized archetypes, and we'll say, oh, if you're taking this archetype and you're playing an Envoy, you'll be replacing these things at 2nd level, 6th level, whatever. And then the archetype will say specifically what you get at 2nd and 6th and whatever and so forth. So some of them will be restricted, maybe there'll be a spellcasting-only archetype, but for the most part they will be sort of generalized and you'll be replacing the same things for every archetype. So unlike in Pathfinder where an archetype for one class might replace three things and an archetype for some other class might replace three other things, this will be a sort of, archetypes will always be replacing things at X/Y/Z level. Some archetypes might not replace them, some do, some might replace more things. It's a very interesting concept. We'll have 1 in the Core Rulebook and we look forward to making more of them.

So because archetypes have become a little more generalized, we wanted to give people customizable options for their characters that are similar to the way archetypes work in Pathfinder. And the way that we've done that is we have what we call Themes. So you have a list of different types of themes, archetypes for what your character is or does or what their occupation is or something about their background. There's a big list of things to choose from. It's sort of a way to use your character's background and storytelling to get some mechanical benefits for that character. So if you have a character that's an outlaw, you're going to get something at 1st level, usually something that's about knowing about something, so in an outlaw's case it's knowing about clandestine things and black markets and sneaky things and stuff like that, and as you advance in level you're getting additional mechanical benefits and abilities that reinforce this idea that your character has done a thing in the past or comes from a type of background. So you'll be able to pick the umbrella and choose different options.

And in that way themes are essentially sort of replacing traits. Something you pick basically as you make your character and then but give you benefits as you continue on.

But unlike archetypes, your themes don't replace class features. Archetypes will still replace class features.

Ah this looks exciting. Stoked for Starfinder. Can't wait for the release!

All right, everyone can be a priest. That's going to be good for my group.

Unfortunately, it seems more and more like instead of bad/average/good BAB, it's really just good/bad (or worse just average *shudders*).

So, is there a class that has a slow BAB progression? I thought the Mystic would be slower, but maybe it's just the Technomancer?

Anyways, can't wait for the Soldier preview!

All right, everyone can be a priest. That's going to be good for my group.

Unfortunately, it seems more and more like instead of bad/average/good BAB, it's really just good/bad (or worse just average *shudders*).

So, is there a class that has a slow BAB progression? I thought the Mystic would be slower, but maybe it's just the Technomancer?

Anyways, can't wait for the Soldier preview!

I heard they will might release 9th level casters later, so they may have bad BAB.

I actually kind of like the idea of the 'Core' classes for the game aiming for better balance between all of them. That's probably more of a strength than a weakness.

So, is the Phrenic Adept archetype the only archetype that will be in the book, then? After all, we were told during the Humble Bundle interviews that their was only going to be one archetype in the book. Or has that number maybe changed since that interview?

We originally only had room for a single archetype. However, as happens, when we were nearing the end of the creation of the core rulebook we discovered we could fit in ONE more.

So the phrenic adept is one of TWO archetypes in the core rulebook. :)

Also, Priest theme confirmed.

Yep!

I'm gonna guess that Keskodai is a Healer Mystic with the Priest theme.

Yep!

Yeah, I seem to recall someone on the dev team saying you could make any class psychic...phrenic adept archetype seems to be the way they're doing that. Interesting...

Yeah, I mentioned ways to be psychic, and phrenic adept archetype, and the Psychic Power feats, are the two thinks I had in mind when I mentioned it.

Yes!

What I love about Pathfinder is the sheer versatility and the customization possible for everything. It's good to see Starfinder will keep that spirit. I don't mind the lack of archetypes because of the new themes and class options.

And after all, pathfinder has NO archetypes in its core rulebook, so we're ahead by 2 for the 1-book count. :)

And we actually don't need as many -- any class can take either of the 2 archetypes we have in the core book, so that's already 21 possible class+archetype combinations (if you include "class + no archetype" as one of the possibilities for each class).

But yes, we're planning to keep things customizeable, while looking at ways to not make things too complex.

The description of archetypes and themes here reminds me of a couple of things I have seen before, but have had limited exposure to (and never used myself):

Archetypes in Starfinder sounds like they might be similar to Rogue Genius Games archetypes that appear under multiple classes (for instance, Youxia). On the same page they define archetype packages of other classes (1 or 2 per class) that can be replaced by one of the Rogue Genius Games archetypes.

Themes in Starfinder sounds like they might be similar to 5th Edition D&D Backgrounds (the starter PDF that Wizards of the Coast distributed for free had snippets of these, but they do not seem to appear in the online 5th Edition D&D SRD that I know of).

Looks like a cross between a psionic and cleric. Looks good. Liked the concept of links

I had thought it was the mystic was the caster that would have the traditional wizard spells fire lighting ect. That may be the techno wizard.

Dave2

I am not happy about the lack of 9th level casters, but I am happy that Starfinder is willing to shake up the formula that much from Pathfinder.

I am keeping an open mind on this matter.

Ashanderai wrote:

So, is the Phrenic Adept archetype the only archetype that will be in the book, then? After all, we were told during the Humble Bundle interviews that their was only going to be one archetype in the book. Or has that number maybe changed since that interview?

We originally only had room for a single archetype. However, as happens, when we were nearing the end of the creation of the core rulebook we discovered we could fit in ONE more.

So the phrenic adept is one of TWO archetypes in the core rulebook. :)

Now there's *two* archetypes?! Awesome!

I am not happy about the lack of 9th level casters, but I am happy that Starfinder is willing to shake up the formula that much from Pathfinder.

I am keeping an open mind on this matter.

I, for one, welcome our new 6th level caster overlords. :)

It is a bit of a shame that there aren't 9th level casters. Dedicated casters are pretty cool. But then again, some of my favorite classes from PF were in the 6th level progression, so w/e. Besides, if the conversion rules work out then I could just import, say, a wizard from PF anyway, so nbd.

I'm super excited. The Mystic sounds great.

Ashanderai wrote:

So, is the Phrenic Adept archetype the only archetype that will be in the book, then? After all, we were told during the Humble Bundle interviews that their was only going to be one archetype in the book. Or has that number maybe changed since that interview?

We originally only had room for a single archetype. However, as happens, when we were nearing the end of the creation of the core rulebook we discovered we could fit in ONE more.

So the phrenic adept is one of TWO archetypes in the core rulebook. :)

Ashanderai wrote:

Also, Priest theme confirmed.

Yep!

Ashanderai wrote:

I'm gonna guess that Keskodai is a Healer Mystic with the Priest theme.

Yep!

Yay! I'm glad we got the Phrenic Adept. But, now I find myself wondering what, if anything, got cut from the core book...? Here's to hoping that the one remaining archetype will be the Xenodruid concept that got mentioned in the Geek & Sundry article last year!

The important question: which divinities will be available in Starfinder?

The important question: which divinities will be available in Starfinder?

Yes! THIS. So much, this. I am dying to know who the new gods on the block will be and what their portfolios and alignments are.

If I remember right, we'll have another set of 20 "core" deities, only some of which are returning from Pathfinder.

(Those that aren't returning aren't necessarily gone, they just have less of a focus in this setting, much the way the Inner Sea and Tian Xia have different lists - not every deity is 'active' everywhere.)

All mystics gain some ability t0 link to other creatures, which manifests as a healing touch used once per day at 1st level, but expands into a mindlink you can establish with creatures by touch, and eventually a telepathic bond you can maintain with up to six creatures at a time. Mystics can gain other powers that work through this connection, depending on their chosen connection.

So then depending on what connection you have, you can potentially be a very powerful buffer, or heal from a distance via mindlink. Can't way to see hoe that actually works!

But, now I find myself wondering what, if anything, got cut from the core book...?

Nothing got cut that I am aware of.

When planning out a book this big there are a lot of unanswered questions early on. How much space will the new style of archetypes, and the intro to the rules for them, take? How will headers, and art, and new diagrams, and charts, and fonts end up affecting words per page? And so on.

So, you take an educated guess at how many pages each section needs, but you don't know until the writing is done, and developed, and edited, and laid out. So, sometimes, you end up with more or less room, and you adjust what is going in.

We had thought we'd only have room for one archetype. We ended up having room for two, so we added the phrenic adept.

Ashanderai wrote:

But, now I find myself wondering what, if anything, got cut from the core book...?

Nothing got cut that I am aware of.

When planning out a book this big there are a lot of unanswered questions early on. How much space will the new style of archetypes, and the intro to the rules for them, take? How will headers, and art, and new diagrams, and charts, and fonts end up affecting words per page? And so on.

So, you take an educated guess at how many pages each section needs, but you don't know until the writing is done, and developed, and edited, and laid out. So, sometimes, you end up with more or less room, and you adjust what is going in.

We had thought we'd only have room for one archetype. We ended up having room for two, so we added the phrenic adept.

Cool. That is nice to know. Thanks for clarifying things.

Aww. So, in the future, there's going to be a more holistic view?

"There is only magic: how you get it to work for you is up to you to discover. Geometric formulae? Talking to plants and animals? Mental gymnastics? Prayers? When you find out what works, you'll know it."

I also like the ability for anyone to dabble in it. Thanks to easily distributed information, non-magical people can just have never bothered to try it. At least, that's how I hope it'll turn out.

Yes, Starfinder seems to be taking the superhero rpg approach to how powers actually work - it's up to the player, in consult with the GM.

By implication, the technomancer could be exactly like a Babylon 5 technomage, with all the magical effects achieved with advanced tech, or they could be a streight up wizard.

The main issue is how to deal with anti-magic and anti-technology fields.

I wish these classes were available in Pathfinder too.

No, that is not the case here. They already addressed archetypes in the Twitch interview.

Ah, my mistake. I'd missed the interview. Still, I was sort of close in that they're doing something a little different with archetypes in general. Thanks for the enlightenment.

Yes, Starfinder seems to be taking the superhero rpg approach to how powers actually work - it's up to the player, in consult with the GM.

By implication, the technomancer could be exactly like a Babylon 5 technomage, with all the magical effects achieved with advanced tech, or they could be a streight up wizard.

The main issue is how to deal with anti-magic and anti-technology fields.

Blunt force, cunning, improvisation. Nothing truely is unbreakable nor is anything ever impossible to overcome. That being said I imagine plenty of people looking at that and going..."well this sucks."

That's not what I meant. I was thinking from a GM's POV. Which powers are actually blocked by an anti-magic field when magical effects, at the player's discretion, could be technological?

Will this class have an Inquisitor or Warpriest theme?