Reports from the Field Part 3

Did anyone play the Solarian as a ranged focused character? Every Solarian I've ever enjoyed was ranged focused, and the strength primary of the class that's being teased will heavily dissuade that as an "subpar" build.

I was fortunate enough to be there at PAX and ran it 4 times (?) was a ton of fun for the players and I am very excited to see how it will look in the upcoming playtest! Thanks Jenny! Was a great convention!

The Envoy is just perfect! Can’t wait!

Great write up, lots of cool stuff here! Looking forward to more playtesting soon.

Did anyone play the Solarian as a ranged focused character? Every Solarian I've ever enjoyed was ranged focused, and the strength primary of the class that's being teased will heavily dissuade that as an "subpar" build.

Hi Ravien! The solarian Mike created for this demo was designed to shine in close combat, with abilities to zoom across the map or pull enemies closer, so most players went all in on that play style.

HOWEVER! This solarian can also manifest a ranged solar weapon (like all solarians in the current SF2 Playtest rules), and quite a few players tried that out, too. (The solarian had a sidearm but in my experience only one player opted to use it; everyone else was too excited about solar shot.)

For this demo, the team wanted to show off what we see as the iconic expression of the solarian class: a martial artist who fights with (melee) weapons manifested from stellar energy—a solar knight. We also wanted more testing and feedback about melee combat in particular, given the game's intended ranged "meta." How does a close combatant do in a ranged fight? Are they outgunned by their enemies (and allies) or do they gain an edge? Is it fun, or does it feel like playing tag around the map while the other characters do all the work?

The only way to make sure we're putting our best foot forward with both the core solarian class and melee combat options in Starfinder 2 is to playtest the heck out of them, hence our focus on that specific play style here.

That being said, community interest in more ranged solarian options is duly noted. :)

Congratulations on the crit at that table, Jenny!!!! <3 SF2e is amazing and I'm so excited to see and share more.

Listened to the cosmic crit play test, was a good time! Can't wait to see final product (well play test final) of solarian. Sounds like it was a blast to play, but I still have so many questions.

Tuesday, January 23, 2023

And time-travel too!

I do want more playtest rules teasers, spoilers, and detailed notes from internal playtesting. I just hope we don't have to wait too long for the 2e versions of the Nanocite and Vanguard, my 2 favorite Starfinder classes.

Solarion is sounding really cool! I feel like them and envoy will be benefiting the most from the edition change

2e Envoy and Solarian have me ridiculously excited :)

Everything so far has got me ridiculously excited!

I'm interested for an operative preview to see what the class has going on for it outside of *leans into scope "I won't miss"...*

Kinda of sad at the ommission of the mechanic, but I do understand that would kind of overlap with the Inventor (Althought a few Starfinder subclasses would not go amiss I did like the idea of the exocortex). However with the playtest we are getting I'm interested in the Solarian and the Envoy and the Mystic and can't wait to learn about the Technomancer.

Agreed, I'm very curious to see how the new Envoy and Solarian shake down!! From what we've seen, the directive-giving, leading-by-example, style of the envoy sounds super cool, and fills a niche that we haven't seen in (to my knowledge) PF2 or SF1! And the new solarian seems to directly answer a lot of the 'pain points' (such as they were; there weren't many complaints about the Solarian's prowess, especially not post soulfire!) from 1e!

Kinda of sad at the ommission of the mechanic, but I do understand that would kind of overlap with the Inventor (Althought a few Starfinder subclasses would not go amiss I did like the idea of the exocortex). However with the playtest we are getting I'm interested in the Solarian and the Envoy and the Mystic and can't wait to learn about the Technomancer.

I'm not particularly bothered about missing out on the Mechanic in the initial set, but if we don't get it as a class eventually, I will be really very disappointed. I liked what I saw with the Soldier, and I'm interested in what the Envoy winds up looking like.

In particular on the Envoy, I'd love to see some degree of ability to pick/customize/improve the orders you can give. I want different Envoys to be ale to lead their party in different ways. One Envoy is really good at leading charge, while another is great at getting all of their buddies safely behind cover and then focusing their fire - stuff like that.

On the Soldier side, I think it would be cool to have different effects that you could add on to the suppressed debuff. Like, one kind of high-level soldier can inflict outright immobility, while another one does real damage to their ability to take shots, and a third leaves them more vulnerable to the shots of others. Possibly as feats locked to their respective class paths? Possibly as a "free action immediately before attacking" metasuppress effect? You probably wouldn't want to let someone stack too many of these, but....

Kinda of sad at the ommission of the mechanic, but I do understand that would kind of overlap with the Inventor (Althought a few Starfinder subclasses would not go amiss I did like the idea of the exocortex). However with the playtest we are getting I'm interested in the Solarian and the Envoy and the Mystic and can't wait to learn about the Technomancer.

I'm not particularly bothered about missing out on the Mechanic in the initial set, but if we don't get it as a class eventually, I will be really very disappointed.

Don't worry! We have plans for mechanic. We want mechanic to be its own class and not just an offshoot of inventor, but as you astutely observed, those two classes occupy the same niche and there's some overlapping design space we'll have to be careful about.

I know we're telling you to wait and see a lot, but remember: Patience is a virtue, and Zon-Shelyn appreciates the joyful pain of your anticipation. ^^

"Kiss It Better"

LOL. Perfect name.

The fun thing about building the solarian for this playtest was that, yes, it was a melee build, but it was also quite different from another melee solarian build I played in one of our internal playtests. (My first task after joining the Starfinder team was to create a character for that playtest, which was more work than it sounds like, given the status of all our documents at the time!) It was more of a graviton-focused and "tanky" solarian, with less of a focus on moving quickly and dealing damage and more of a focus on repositioning/pinning down enemies (and staying alive).

One of the big things I learned from that playtest was that, yes, my solarian felt quite powerful and dangerous once I was able to get into melee combat, but I wanted more options for dealing damage while closing the gap.

So we wrote some feats, and soon(ish) you'll get to playtest them!

But, no, not soon enough. ;)

"Kiss It Better"

LOL. Perfect name.

I'm not 100% sure who wrote that one, but I can confirm both naming and reading some of the names of our feats and spells has been a blast.

Finoan wrote:

"Kiss It Better"

LOL. Perfect name.

I'm not 100% sure who wrote that one, but I can confirm both naming and reading some of the names of our feats and spells has been a blast.

I *think* Kiss It Better was Jessica—makes sense coming from a mom! But I agree, the names of spells and feats are top notch, and I am such a fan of all the neat things we came up with, even when I can't remember which one of us actually named it. And that's my favorite part of Project Veskmas....collaborating with everyone on team StarFriends!<3

The fun thing about building the solarian for this playtest was that, yes, it was a melee build, but it was also quite different from another melee solarian build I played in one of our internal playtests. (My first task after joining the Starfinder team was to create a character for that playtest, which was more work than it sounds like, given the status of all our documents at the time!) It was more of a graviton-focused and "tanky" solarian, with less of a focus on moving quickly and dealing damage and more of a focus on repositioning/pinning down enemies (and staying alive).

One of the big things I learned from that playtest was that, yes, my solarian felt quite powerful and dangerous once I was able to get into melee combat, but I wanted more options for dealing damage while closing the gap.

So we wrote some feats, and soon(ish) you'll get to playtest them!

But, no, not soon enough. ;)

Awesome stuff, I'm excited to load up on gravity powers and make a force adept

Don't worry! We have plans for mechanic. We want mechanic to be its own class and not just an offshoot of inventor, but as you astutely observed, those two classes occupy the same niche and there's some overlapping design space we'll have to be careful about.

I know we're telling you to wait and see a lot, but remember: Patience is a virtue, and Zon-Shelyn appreciates the joyful pain of your anticipation. ^^

Yay! That's really cool! thanks for the heads up. Finding a way to give it it's own identity while letting it retain some of it's old features will have to be tough.

Glad to hear mechanic isn't getting quietly eaten by inventor. I wonder if the class is going to focus on the exocortex then. Maybe it'll be about temporarily modifying the team's equipment. Also, if the drone gets ditched to separate itself from the inventor might I humbly request a drone archetype (would honestly be better for the game than being relegated to the mechanic).

Jenny Jarzabski wrote:

Don't worry! We have plans for mechanic. We want mechanic to be its own class and not just an offshoot of inventor, but as you astutely observed, those two classes occupy the same niche and there's some overlapping design space we'll have to be careful about.

I know we're telling you to wait and see a lot, but remember: Patience is a virtue, and Zon-Shelyn appreciates the joyful pain of your anticipation. ^^

Yay! That's really cool! thanks for the heads up. Finding a way to give it it's own identity while letting it retain some of it's old features will have to be tough.

Personally I don't think it'll be too much of a problem. For the mechanic, their "tool" is just a subset of their technology. The drone, weapon, armor, or exocortex is something that they're very invested in, but unlike Inventor who is 100% in on their invention and doing risky/experimental things with it, the mechanic is akin to a military armorer or engineer - ideally making things more reliable and maybe getting a bit of extra performance out of it, while still being a skilled technician and soldier. Its got some overlap, but so did Technomancer in SF1e, and both lived perfectly good lives.

I'm definitely interested in seeing the Solarion. Is it public knowledge yet when the Solarion or any of the other classes used will be shown off in a playtest preview document?

Personally I don't think it'll be too much of a problem. For the mechanic, their "tool" is just a subset of their technology. The drone, weapon, armor, or exocortex is something that they're very invested in, but unlike Inventor who is 100% in on their invention and doing risky/experimental things with it, the mechanic is akin to a military armorer or engineer - ideally making things more reliable and maybe getting a bit of extra performance out of it, while still being a skilled technician and soldier. Its got some overlap, but so did Technomancer in SF1e, and both lived perfectly good lives.

Hmm... I can see your point, And that is a good point, finding a way to differentiate based on "Creating unstable" things and "Maintaining stable things is thematically a good idea, but it still leads to how do you mechanically represent that, and prevent their class feats from having too much overlap. Especially since their sublcasses are very similar, with the exception of the Exocortex.

Technomancer I'd worry about it having too much overlap with Wizard since it had that whole spell cache thing.

Is it public knowledge yet when the Solarion or any of the other classes used will be shown off in a playtest preview document?

IIRC in a recent stream they said that the next Field Test will come out in March, previewing the Envoy. Nothing beyond that, though, to my knowledge.

Technomancer I'd worry about it having too much overlap with Wizard since it had that whole spell cache thing.

Based on the small teases we've gotten so far, I'm starting to agree with others who suggest we might see Technomancer, at release, as a subclass for the PF2 Wizard. (As in, technomancer won't get its own unique class write-up, but somewhere in a "Pathfinder Compatibility" chapter or something, there would be new class feat / Arcane Schools / Arcane Thesis options, with a technomagical bent?)

Technomancer I'd worry about it having too much overlap with Wizard since it had that whole spell cache thing.

Oh no, technomancer isn't going to be eaten by the PF2 wizard. We see it as an iconic Starfinder class—a mage who manipulates tech. If you haven't seen us talking about a specific class, it's probably because we're still working on it internally and we're not ready to show off what we've created yet.

As we get closer to release, the likelihood of seeing more detailed previews decreases. But the time of the playtest approaches. SOON!

Zoken44 wrote:

Technomancer I'd worry about it having too much overlap with Wizard since it had that whole spell cache thing.

Oh no, technomancer isn't going to be eaten by the PF2 wizard. We see it as an iconic Starfinder class—a mage who manipulates tech. If you haven't seen us talking about a specific class, it's probably because we're still working on it internally and we're not ready to show off what we've created yet.

As we get closer to release, the likelihood of seeing more detailed previews decreases. But the time of the playtest approaches. SOON!

Oh that's good to hear. I'd been a tch concerned by something I'd read earlier that you might be turning it into an archetype or something.

Do you have any others that you're allowed to add to the "we're totally planning on having this be its own full class eventually, but it's probably going to be a while and we're not anywhere close to being able to share details yet" list?

Do you have any others that you're allowed to add to the "we're totally planning on having this be its own full class eventually, but it's probably going to be a while and we're not anywhere close to being able to share details yet" list?

Alas, this information is classified. :)

It's very hard not to spill a bunch of juicy secrets about SF2 because I'm super hyped about all our plans, but if I do that, a contract devil will come drag me to hell and you won't get to talk me about pew pew lasers and stellar knights anymore. Sad times! D:

So all I can say is the team is excited about a lot of things, including "remastering" legacy Starfinder material *and* adding new content the community might not be expecting.

I would have been absolutely shocked if Technomancer got turned into a Wizard archetype. There are way too many good ideas for it!

Funny story: During a playtest stream, during a break, there was a hot mic that caught someone saying "ah that'd be good for the technomancer" or something along those lines, but no other details. It was such a tease!

Oh no, technomancer isn't going to be eaten by the PF2 wizard. We see it as an iconic Starfinder class—a mage who manipulates tech. If you haven't seen us talking about a specific class, it's probably because we're still working on it internally and we're not ready to show off what we've created yet.

As we get closer to release, the likelihood of seeing more detailed previews decreases. But the time of the playtest approaches. SOON!

Oh, this is fun, I get my a teaser every time I mention a class that excites me!

I wasn't to worried, just expressing empathy and awe at the task the designers had ahead of them.

and since this has worked before. Jeepers Worry that they won't be able to find a way to impliment the Nanocyte!

I wasn't to worried, just expressing empathy and awe at the task the designers had ahead of them

We're doing our best!

and since this has worked before. Jeepers Worry that they won't be able to find a way to impliment the Nanocyte!

Nice try. ;)

Two more field test previews and we can start running full parties at home before the playtest!

I like that line of thought, although, they have made it clear that stuff from at least the first playtest has already been updated.

I am infinitely excited (ha, see what I did there) for Starfinder 2e.
I've been really wanting to play SF1e but it has seemed a bit overwhelming to learn how to DM the game for people and an even harder sell to people who are so caught up in the other famous TTRPG that shall not be named.
Luckily I got a group into PF2e and I'm super excited that SF2e is going go be following in a similar streamlined manner of rule as pathfinder 2e. I'm dying to get my hands on a public playtest if you guys ever release one online before official release. I'm intrigued by the supposed integration and seamless crossover with PF2e.

Dustin Knight wrote:

Finoan wrote:

"Kiss It Better"

LOL. Perfect name.

I'm not 100% sure who wrote that one, but I can confirm both naming and reading some of the names of our feats and spells has been a blast.

I *think* Kiss It Better was Jessica—makes sense coming from a mom! But I agree, the names of spells and feats are top notch, and I am such a fan of all the neat things we came up with, even when I can't remember which one of us actually named it. And that's my favorite part of Project Veskmas....collaborating with everyone on team StarFriends!<3

Should be fun to play a Vesk or Trox and RPing the tough love version of Kiss it Better.

I am infinitely excited (ha, see what I did there) for Starfinder 2e.

I've been really wanting to play SF1e but it has seemed a bit overwhelming to learn how to DM the game for people and an even harder sell to people who are so caught up in the other famous TTRPG that shall not be named.
Luckily I got a group into PF2e and I'm super excited that SF2e is going go be following in a similar streamlined manner of rule as pathfinder 2e. I'm dying to get my hands on a public playtest if you guys ever release one online before official release. I'm intrigued by the supposed integration and seamless crossover with PF2e.

There absolutely will be a public beta before the official release. To my understanding, it has been confirmed that it will be available in hardcover (if you want to buy hardcover) and free PDF.

There may or may not be a series of more fragmentary public playtests prior to that point. Technically you could use the field tests, possibly in combination with a bunch of stuff out of PF2 to fill them out, but the combination of "this is all massively in flux" and "we release one of theses every few months" means that you're pretty much guaranteed to be playing with stuff that they've long since moved past, and the actual value as a playtest may be limited. In particular I note that they've pretty much stated outright that the field tests documents are not playtest documents, and they're not asking us to playtest them. So....

The public Starfinder 2 playtest begins this August, when we release the book at GenCon.

If you can buy the book, please do; it's gorgeous and we've put a LOT of effort into making it. Plus, you'll be getting a piece of Starfinder history to keep on your shelf even after the playtest ends. (I still have my PF2 playtest book!) Most important, purchasing a book shows Paizo leadership that there's community support for the game.

If that's not feasible for you right now, that's okay. We'll have the PDF available and I'm sure the space badasses over at Archives of Nethys will make sure to post the playtest rules.

The public Starfinder 2 playtest begins this August, when we release the book at GenCon.

If you can buy the book, please do; it's gorgeous and we've put a LOT of effort into making it. Plus, you'll be getting a piece of Starfinder history to keep on your shelf even after the playtest ends. (I still have my PF2 playtest book!) Most important, purchasing a book shows Paizo leadership that there's community support for the game.

If that's not feasible for you right now, that's okay. We'll have the PDF available and I'm sure the space badasses over at Archives of Nethys will make sure to post the playtest rules.

You've got my purchase! However, I do hope download traffic for the pdf also factors into business strategy for SF2E

You've got my purchase! However, I do hope download traffic for the pdf also factors into business strategy for SF2E

Yeah. Don't make the same mistake that Fox made with Firefly.

PDF downloads should count for showing interest just like physical book purchases.

If you can buy the book, please do; it's gorgeous and we've put a LOT of effort into making it. Plus, you'll be getting a piece of Starfinder history to keep on your shelf even after the playtest ends. (I still have my PF2 playtest book!) Most important, purchasing a book shows Paizo leadership that there's community support for the game.

Totally excited that SF2E is happening! Pre-ordered and counting down the months until it comes out.

The collector in me wishes I could get this in a hardback, even a special edition.

Ravien999 wrote:

Personally I don't think it'll be too much of a problem. For the mechanic, their "tool" is just a subset of their technology. The drone, weapon, armor, or exocortex is something that they're very invested in, but unlike Inventor who is 100% in on their invention and doing risky/experimental things with it, the mechanic is akin to a military armorer or engineer - ideally making things more reliable and maybe getting a bit of extra performance out of it, while still being a skilled technician and soldier. Its got some overlap, but so did Technomancer in SF1e, and both lived perfectly good lives.

Hmm... I can see your point, And that is a good point, finding a way to differentiate based on "Creating unstable" things and "Maintaining stable things is thematically a good idea, but it still leads to how do you mechanically represent that, and prevent their class feats from having too much overlap. Especially since their sublcasses are very similar, with the exception of the Exocortex.

Technomancer I'd worry about it having too much overlap with Wizard since it had that whole spell cache thing.

Tbh, there might be a slight overlap in feats, but I would also expect a slight overlap with the design space of gunslinger feats too. An overlap isn't a big deal in feats imo. There's only what, like 8 archetypes that just steal Fighter or Monk feats? Its the base class and the overall selection that needs to be distinguished.

Jenny Jarzabski wrote:

Oh no, technomancer isn't going to be eaten by the PF2 wizard. We see it as an iconic Starfinder class—a mage who manipulates tech. If you haven't seen us talking about a specific class, it's probably because we're still working on it internally and we're not ready to show off what we've created yet.

As we get closer to release, the likelihood of seeing more detailed previews decreases. But the time of the playtest approaches. SOON!

Oh, this is fun, I get my a teaser every time I mention a class that excites me!

I wasn't to worried, just expressing empathy and awe at the task the designers had ahead of them.

and since this has worked before. Jeepers Worry that they won't be able to find a way to impliment the Nanocyte!

real talk, I hope too much of PF2 design methodology doesn't impact Starfinder. Nanocyte, Precog, Vanguard, Evolutionist, Solarian, Envoy they all use alternative resources today, but PF2 design seems to be afraid of utilizing anything other than Focus Spells/Points and spell slots. I hope we don't maintain this fear going into SF2, as having different managed resources allow these classes to feel very entertainingly variant to each other and really raise the level of uniqueness.

Even PF2e started has started to branch out, the underlying mechanics of the Kineticist represent a massive change in how they're built, one that a lot of classes like the evolutionist and Nanocyte could iterate on.

Even PF2e started has started to branch out, the underlying mechanics of the Kineticist represent a massive change in how they're built, one that a lot of classes like the evolutionist and Nanocyte could iterate on.

I highly agree. Psychic and Kineticist i've joked multiple times are "Starfinder Class Design." I've never enjoyed PF/D&D class design and they both give me hope we can actually have versatile, interesting classes in SF2e.

Give me breadth every day of the week over the super specific niche that most fantasy classes occupy