Dubious Scholar's page

Sanguivolent Roots doesn't hit undead well, because as written it only hurts them if it drains the life from anything. Which requires a living target, and it only hits them for half the highest damage a living target took.

I feel like the roots should just skewer everything, and then if they had a living target to drain life from the undead take extra damage. So it's always useful (and also impales constructs) instead of having major enemy types it does nothing against... and then in that edge case of mixed undead and not it gets to do extra damage to the undead.

Dunno if that ends up being too good though, since it already has friend-or-foe built in and such.

So, a short sword maxed out on damaging runes does 7d6. 24.5 damage.
Elemental Blast caps out at 6d6. (Or 6d8) 21/27 damage.

The problem, of course, is that martials get various damage bonuses. At minimum, +6 flat damage from weapon specialization, which already puts the basic short sword ahead of anything a blast can do.

I'm suggesting changing blast from Heighten +4 to Heighten +3, so that it keeps up better with weapons (which add a die of damage every 3 levels give or take if you always pick damaging runes). That would cap it out at 8 dice instead of 6, but adding 2d8 is +9 average damage... and would only put it slightly ahead of a Rogue who isn't getting sneak attack damage (36 average for 8d8 of blast versus 30.5 for a maxed-out short sword plus weapon spec.)

Basically, this is a very small change that would shore up Kineticist's severe lack of options for single targets. (And basically still always ends up weaker than martial classes doing their thing)

Dubious Scholar wrote:

If you drop a hand when a 2H is loaded, there's no way to avoid paying 1A to get it ready to fire again. You have to do non-shooty 1H stuff only when empty.

1+ H doesn't have that concern. Use that hand for whatever, but it needs to be free at the moments you want to Reload & Shoot. It is kinda a small thing, but it's honestly more significant mechanical impact than a lot of weapon traits are...

The way I read it, your hand is locked in use holding the arrow/draw once you "reload" the phalanx piercer. If you try to use that hand for something else the bow is no longer loaded (because now nothing is holding the arrow in place and you're no longer mid-draw). There's some ambiguity to it (what does it mean for a bow to be loaded? Do you have more modern nocks on your arrows? What is reload 1 even representing on a bow? Fiddly arrows, longer draw time because it's got a ridiculous draw weight?).

The rules on 1+ hands feel like they were written with the assumption it would always be Reload 0 weapons, so it breaks down a bit.

kaid wrote:

Stuff like everybody in a giant area friendly concealed/have cover or enemies treat everything as difficult terrain that can be upgraded to basically be a 100 foot field of immobility is a pretty damn powerful tool.

That 100-foot field only comes online from level 19, so that's about 2 levels of extremely excessive power on a class that otherwise never really manages to connect their gimmick to their spellcasting, at least not in my experience. There are some feats that are genuinely quite overtuned, like Twisted Dark Zone and Complete Transposition (especially post-level 19), but I don't think that necessarily makes the class feel especially interesting or smooth to play, as opposed to the Mystic blending Transfer Vitality quite smoothly alongside their spells.

The spellshape you get at 3 that extends a spell's range to your quantum field (and makes it not extend outside it) feels like it has some applications depending on how a GM interprets the ability to choose what creatures are affected by your field. One possible reading is that Isolated Spell Matrix would exclude them from e.g. Fireball. (And even without that you could use it to contain an AoE to a smaller area)

I disagree on Sudden Charge presenting an option. There is never a reason not to Sudden Charge unless you can't reach the enemy even with two Strides. At any distance less than that... if you want to attack them you just use it, put yourself next to them, and swing. Sure, you might not have needed two strides of distance. But why take the time figuring that out when you use two actions to reach the enemy and hit them either way?

I have seen players trying to figure out whether they need Sudden Charge to reach an enemy or not, counting out squares. Unless you want to use some other special attack (e.g. Vicious Swing)... just charge. In a lot of fights you don't even need to measure distance either since you can easily get to 60'+ range on it and just choose where you end up because you'll have movement to spare.

Phalanx Piercer is Reload 1 and also a Hands 1+ weapon. This... works but feels odd?

1+ hand weapons are otherwise all Reload 0 - the + being you need your other hand free to nock, draw, and shoot an arrow. Reload 1 splits reloading out as a separate action, so you need the hand free to nock and then presumably it remains occupied holding the arrow until you shoot the bow with a second action.

This works, but as a functional matter it's basically identical to a 2h weapon at that point (assuming your GM allows the regrip inside of reload to be used when you started with only one hand on a weapon) and just feels odd.

Not really broken, but Sanguivolent Roots as written has a somewhat niche effect with the undead damage, because it can only hurt undead if there's also a living enemy in the AoE at the same time.

It kind of feels pointlessly narrow that way.

There are plenty of non-wooden Plant creatures, even in newer books.

The Giant Flytrap and Sargassum Heap chief among them.

But also plenty of Wood Plant creatures such as the Arboreals.

Also non-Plant Wood creatures. Like Jungle Drakes and Forest Trolls. Weird.

As a GM, I'd look at the pictures, if ones exist, and read the description. If it sounds like they're partially composed of Wood, I'd allow it.

For the particular creatures, I'd definitely allow it. They're both clearly made of wood and, notably, were printed before Rage of Elements, which introduced the Wood trait.

In general, "wood" directly encompasses the lifecycle of trees as a whole (seeds, trees, flowers, fruit, etc), natural growth (which doesn't generally translate to elemental matter, but this is why it gets vitality blasts), things that grow on trees (moss, vines), etc. It's broader than just the stuff that makes up tree trunks is the main point.

And while trees are a kind of plant, most plants are not "wood". So I would expect many GMS to say no.

Wood is the name of the element, but it covers plant matter more generally. Look at the breadth of things the impulses create - fruit, brambles, flowers...

The snow witch's familiar ability may be awful, but the hex cantrip is pretty much always good - 1 action for almost-a-cantrip damage (it's literally 1d4 less at all ranks) is a reasonable way to third action, or move+sustain+hex, etc.

The class is solid but overshadowed by other casters imo.

Class feats at level 10+ do start to be able to do horrible things to enemies without the incapacitation trait. That's the level PF2 witch gets instant death without incap, for instance. (Curse of Death, so they still need multiple failed saves to hit the instant death effect, but)

Exemplar's Horn of Plenty ikon.

The Feed the Masses transcendence is cool. But it has a critical snag - you must use the item on an ally. This is awkward, because it means that if you want to use an item on yourself and be in another ikon you basically lose any benefit from it's immanence effect (you need a net of two actions - one to draw and drink, one to shift immanence). But if you use it on an ally, you get to do it all for one action. This is really awkward and feels bad, and it doesn't seem like a huge buff to allow Transcend on yourself so much as quality of life.

I would be really happy if we had a "spell attack-like" action for the wand too. It would ideally require 1 action to use and it would nice to pair with the fling magic action for a nice 2A+1A routine. It would also be really cool for a "wandslinger" feeling which I think is what people wanted the wand to be.

Would also allow the wand to proc weaknesses. Always seemed odd it didn't really interact with that.

Edit: Actually, would that be enough of a buff to the wand if it just got to trigger the weaknesses from Exploit Vulnerability? (Especially as that damage would be added after halving on successful saves)

You get some edge cases with "can a bastard sword be a weapon implement", though that's kind of pointless because Empowerment gives the same damage bonus as two-handing it anyways. But I suppose you could free swap to a 2h grip in that case (I'd allow it anyways)

Whether bows can be a weapon implement is a gray area. They definitely don't work with Empowerment though, which is greatly limiting on them. Shuriken give the same damage output without hitting grey areas because of that (just use a thrower's bandolier), if not the same range. Rotary Bows are also interesting - d8 1h crossbow so it has very good damage at the cost of reload actions.

There's definitely room to buff a few of the weaker implements (bell could use it, for instance). Mirror's Adept tier having friendly fire is awkward for society play, even if the actual damage is negligible (if the implement wasn't already pretty good I'd suggest the shards should trigger Mortal Weakness/Personal Antithesis, but)

"When you Cast or Sustain a hex, your familiar can curse a creature within 15 feet of it, prolonging the duration of any negative conditions affecting it by 1 round."

Mine is a raven. And he floats around willy-nilly cursing everyone (even friends if they piss him off).

Quoth the raven, "Evermore!"?

Paco_Laburantes wrote:

I just played the starfinder society 1-00 mission the other day and I found that the classes seem a lot more complicated than their pathfinder brethren.

So... you haven't looked at Thaumaturge, Summoner, or Oracle, have you?

Thaumaturge is literally "build-a-class" with the implements. They all grant potent abilities and let you decide what you want to be able to do on top of the basic chassis of "hit all the weaknesses with 1h weapons". It's solid, but the choice paralysis is real.

Summoner is martial and a spellcaster fused together and sharing actions. Possibly the class with the absolute most options in any given turn, even if a lot of enemies can be dealt with via "Boost Eidolon, beat them to death" routines.

Oracle... I haven't played or built and I know it has a lot of moving parts to track with focus points and curse progression and such.

The core PF2 classes are mostly pretty simple, sure. But I don't think they're dramatically simpler than Soldier is, outside of like... Fighter.

Nah, the pedantry about assurance not counting as a roll so it just randomly doesn't work with things is dumb. "Roll diplomacy" is just shorthand for "make a diplomacy check". Paizo has page limits and saving space matters.

Even if you're being that pedantic, One For All says you may roll Diplomacy. Assurance says you may take a fixed result instead of rolling diplomacy. I choose to roll diplomacy and then to replace my roll with a fixed result, done.

This is like people arguing that Risky Surgery can't be allowed to work with Assurance because a non-scaling 4.5 extra HP healed is unfair or broken somehow.

Let's be honest, at level 9 a Wit Swashbuckler has, at minimum, a +15 with their master Diplomacy. Add in +4 CHA and they get a critical success 75% of the time already. Assurance is nice, but quickly falls off since in four more levels they have +23 and critically succeed on anything but a natural 1 (and one level later, even a natural 1 is a success)

I view Soldier as kind of an attrition deal - you're dealing consistent damage to multiple enemies every turn while making it harder for them to hurt the party (both by soaking damage and by inflicting Suppressed). It doesn't really have a direct comparison... but Kineticist is probably one of the closer ones.

But mechanically, Operative is closer to Fighter (well, it's Gunslinger in space really, but).

Well, there's only 1 common 2h parry weapon to begin with - the Bo Staff. (Which, to be fair, is a solid weapon), and at level 2 you'd probably be taking the upgrade to your parry AC anyways.

Level 4 has fun toys like Area Armor and Proud Nail. A reach weapon definitely takes Reactive Strike at 6. Or possibly you go the Hampering Strike chain. Group Taunt at 8 solves the action economy issues, or Mighty Bulwark to just say no to reflex saves in general.

Guardian has a lot of solid feat options that don't care about shields, so I don't really see an issue there I guess. Even completely ignoring shields or parry I can easily pick feats I'd be happy with all the way to 20. (Well, the level 14 feats feel lackluster, but that's just generally true, and there's enough lower level stuff to consider anyways)

Even without giving them the parry trait, they have some feats that reward reach in general. Reach also lets you do fun things like hide behind your Bodyguard target to offer even worse options for resolving Taunt. (Attack the fighter at -2, or walk past them and provoke to attack the tank)

It does also occur to me that Minefield could, say, fence in a large/huge creature in a way where any move it takes sets off multiple mines, since they're allowed to be adjacent to each other and all.

The damage ceiling for the spell with a coordinated party or the right circumstances is incredible.

Dubious Scholar wrote:

I'm not seeing Frozen Fog (from Battlecry!) in the guide - not really sure how to evaluate it since it's mostly damage over time. What are your thoughts on it?

I haven't got to Battle Cry yet...

Ah, I saw the instant minefield spell already in the list, so just assumed :P.

I'm not seeing Frozen Fog (from Battlecry!) in the guide - not really sure how to evaluate it since it's mostly damage over time. What are your thoughts on it?

Chems are in a rough spot I feel though.

Bullets are dirt cheap. It's bookkeeping, but I mean, dirt. cheap. Often have good magazine sizes too. Like even the rocket launcher? 8 shots before Reload 1.

Batteries are the most expensive but they're refillable and they come in bigger sizes at higher levels. This means they quickly have very big functional magazines since you get double base capacity at 2 and quadruple at 4. Most weapons are only using 1-2 charges per shot so 40 charges will last a long time. The least bookkeeping as well - like two batteries at level 4 and you're set for life.

Chems? Chems are magazines you can't reload partially. They're much more expensive than projectiles but the only advantage you have over them is bigger tanks at higher levels. Smaller tanks than batteries at all tiers but level 4 and the pricing is wonky. So you get the bookkeeping of bullets and some of the cost of batteries. And while the level 4 ones have the best credits/shot I think in the long run you'll spend more on chems than batteries if you're playing from 4-10 the whole way since those two batteries I mentioned? You get a whopping 4 tanks of 40 chems each for that. Best case, 80 total shots of a weapon before chems cost you more.

Multi burst weapons - shoot two+ smaller explosions. Possibly requires the bursts to be touching? (so like, pick 4 adjacent 5' bursts)

Remove limiter - Mod to make nonlethal weapons lethal. Possibly doesn't need to take up a mod slot?

Soldier's level 12 Death Blossom feat interacts strangely with battery/chem weapons (i.e. most area weapons currently). It expends your entire magazine and requires a full magazine.

Because of how batteries and chems work, this means the cost of firing it in ammo is cheaper if you use the smallest capacity ones.

Now, the full magazine requirement basically means your previous turn needs to end with a reload for it regardless, so nothing stops you swapping in a fresh 10 credit battery... but it is odd.

It also interacts poorly with Overwatch of course. (because if you Overwatch you no longer have a full battery for your 3-action attack).

Truthfully, I'm not even sure it's particularly good as an attack anyways since giant emanations are really hard to use without hitting allies, and it otherwise only offers a -1 penalty to the saves against it. And you don't get to Primary Target. But still, the interaction with batteries/chems is odd.

So, I can't see anything preventing me from, at level 8, installing both Flaming and Frost on a weapon at the same time, since level 4 weapons have 2 upgrade slots.

At many levels, this means the damage potential for SF2 weapons is higher than PF2, where property runes are constrained by the tier of potency rune. (SF2 weapons start at 1 slot and gain 1 with each tier of striking rune equivalent upgrade)

The main clarification needed on Primary Target is if it consumes ammo. And how it interacts with grenades, since those are thrown with Area Attack and thus trigger all the Soldier goodies.

This might be better clarified in GM Core when it drops, but there don't really seem to be clear guidelines on when you can Fly in zero-G or not. Obviously, Sarcesians have explicit flight in vacuum, but otherwise it seems unclear and the rules don't have any distinction between wings or jetpacks or the various innate fly speeds like Contemplatives.

In a similar vein, Untethered's definition is circular - you're untethered when you have no way to move in an environment and then Untethered says you can only use move actions that say they work in your environment, but nothing actually seems to say "You're untethered if...". So if you're Untethered you're now stuck as Untethered (even if gravity comes on! After all, Stride doesn't explicitly say it can be used on land in gravity). But if you aren't Untethered nothing says you can't use your move actions so you're not Untethered?

Zero Cannon is definitely one of the easiest area weapons to not hit allies with - line templates are extremely flexible.

Having basically no feats worth taking at level 1 for Bombard feels really bad though.

Is it wrong to ask for a portable missile barrage? Just a full-automatic micro-missile launcher. I'm not actually sure it would even be mechanically different really from the machine gun already printed? But it's the imagery of it all (especially when used for auto-fire)

Attachments for guns like a bayonet, or a chainsaw. I want the gun from Gears of War.

I feel like this would be really useful for Soldier. Was surprised at there not being any way to integrate a melee option to a gun for Whirling Strike and such.

I'll note there are two mid-to-high level abilities that party members can use to help a sniper reload: Envoy has the Hustle feat to grant a quickened interact once per 10 minutes, and the Rhythm focus 6 spell Remix can do the same but be sustained to provide the extra reload every round.

I wouldn't be surprised by a gear solution to this (and projectile magazine limitations in general) in Tech Core.

There's also the cantrip that reloads a weapon with magic bullets for 1 action. (They only last for a round, but...)

The Recharge Weapon cantrip specifies "ammunition or charges", which leaves open the question of whether it can also reload chem-based weapons.

Zoken44 wrote:

would a repeatable feat that gives your solarian weapon an extra trait be broken?

Hell yeah!

The Solar Weapon as is - 1H 1D8 + 2 Traits - is already into Advanced Weapons.
And htat is before all the Attunement Stuff and what else the Solarian is doing with it.

Depends on the traits, since Two-handed d10 is weaker than a bastard sword.

I've been actually toying with a Grenade Envoy build. Ready Arms! feels like it works best with grenades- the fact that it wants you to constantly switch to a new weapon AND can work with area fire is so convenient!

I would absolutely love to play a supportive Envoy that draws a flash grenade, tosses it, makes your allies concealed to the enemy, and allows your ally to make a free strike- all for two actions. Your third action is free for striking, demoralizing to set up your teammates, etc.

Ooh, that's a nice trick.

Soldier, naturally, works well with grenades because the whole class is kind of built around area fire (and auto-fire). It's debatable whether you get a Primary Target strike with a grenade, but if your GM allows it that's pretty strong. Even without that, Bombard has nice benefits like Suppressed even on success (compared to Failure for other soldiers) and excluding allies from the explosion.

I've always found immunity to nonlethal odd in function to begin with.

Like, I'm punching a skeleton for 1d4+4 B, but it doesn't matter that I have +4 strength if my fist is technically nonlethal? It won't break the bones? That doesn't make any sense at all.

It seems like the intent, in a lot of cases, is to say "you can't knock this creature out via nonlethal damage", but because of how it's written it just means "nonlethal effects don't damage this at all".

Generally speaking, there should probably be a rule somewhere that says creatures immune to nonlethal damage treat it as lethal damage instead unless stated otherwise.

Although I suppose in the case of the Arc Emitter at least, it's not like there's an actual penalty for shooting it lethally since -2 to hit doesn't affect the DC. (Soldier's Primary Target aside, anyways)

Edit: And apparently misremembered undead using it. Still, it's always felt odd as a whole, because taking the -2 to hit to... what? You're already swinging the weapon as hard as you can, but suddenly it'll dent something it couldn't before?

An overkill mod or something would be nice, but I just kind of dislike the rule as a whole to begin with. Nonlethal feels like a drawback more than a benefit too often, since there's rarely a practical difference between the two, you can generally just ask the GM to apply dying rules anyways to let you stabilize after the fight instead of fussing with nonlethal attacks, etc. Heck, the fact that only the last hit to a creature matters at all is odd. (Sure, you lopped their arms off with a sword, but then you bonked their last 2 HP with your first so they're not bleeding out!)

Dubious Scholar wrote:

Hmm. Soldier's level 1 feat choices feel very lacking for Bombards. Almost literally useless, in fact.

Burst of Strength - You need a free hand to use Athletics. And also strength investment. You're already investing in dex and con, so...?
Quick Swap - Yes, pull out the melee weapon you have +0/+1 str for.
Ready Reload - All area weapons are Reload 1.
Pin Down - Bulwark automatically suppresses any enemy that gets a success, so this does nothing
Whirling Swipe - Again, low str. That said, this does let you melee Area Fire, but even then it feels like in most cases you're better off just shooting your gun? The one edge case there is the bonus DC on Backswing/Sweep weapons (not sure it beats Primary Target damage though... unless, specifically, you're using a Fangblade and Boost it first before choosing not to Primary Target so the boost applies on the reflex save... and even then I don't know if this is better than Shot on the Run at 2 or something instead)

Ready reload seems a solid option. I was seeing a bunch of area weapons that were 2 action reloads. Not huge but still lets you blast off and then if you run dry reload and be ready to start blasting again next round.

The only reload 2 weapons are the machine guns, which are automatic, not area. (As written, only half of Bombard works for automatic weapons - ignoring allies in the area is limited to area weapons as written. Which may not be intended)

Chem tanks don't have linear scaling on their cost/capacity. The level 4 ones are by far the most efficient. Compare to batteries having straight 1 charge/credit costs.

Singing Coil being Expend 5 feels excessively high? Depending on your interpretation of Primary Target a Soldier could empty their entire battery at level 1 in a single attack. Seems like it should be 2 the same as other area weapons.

Hmm. Soldier's level 1 feat choices feel very lacking for Bombards. Almost literally useless, in fact.

Burst of Strength - You need a free hand to use Athletics. And also strength investment. You're already investing in dex and con, so...?
Quick Swap - Yes, pull out the melee weapon you have +0/+1 str for.
Ready Reload - All area weapons are Reload 1.
Pin Down - Bulwark automatically suppresses any enemy that gets a success, so this does nothing
Whirling Swipe - Again, low str. That said, this does let you melee Area Fire, but even then it feels like in most cases you're better off just shooting your gun? The one edge case there is the bonus DC on Backswing/Sweep weapons (not sure it beats Primary Target damage though... unless, specifically, you're using a Fangblade and Boost it first before choosing not to Primary Target so the boost applies on the reflex save... and even then I don't know if this is better than Shot on the Run at 2 or something instead)

As written - Armor Storm soldiers can't use Rocket Jump because the former says they're never in the area of a ranged attack and the latter requires them to aim so they are.

Mystic's Network Shield doesn't say they can't reduce damage by more than they have left in their Vitality Network. If they're running on empty it's basically free massive damage reduction that way?

The 2h trait only going up to d10 is pretty bad though, since PF2 Bastard Sword is 1d8 with Two-Handed d12 as its only trait. (The comparable Skyfire Sword for SF2 is d10, but also Deadly d8, so...)

Your MAP increases, but the save DC is not affected. Soldier gets to cheat a lot at MAP really, when you look at things like Primary Target and the various "full auto even more" abilities they have.

Soldier:

Offensive Defense - Doesn't exclude the character using this from the burst.

On another battery note, most energy weapons use two charges per shot. With a spare battery priced at 10cr, that means each shot costs 2cr, 20x as much as a projectile round. They can be recharged, but you have to recharge it 20 times to get the cost per shot down to what it is for projectile weapons, and by that time you very well may have upgraded to a higher-capacity weapon. In addition, 10cr is a lot for a 1st level character trying to buy starting gear--approximately 7% of their starting credits for 5 extra shots.

All of this is to say, batteries are too expensive. My errata suggestion is changing them to ~2cr for a replacement battery.

I'd say you need to half the cost per shot, considering you'll sell batteries for better ones eventually. Since unlike bullets they're not actually consumed.

On a related note though - I'm noting on Nethys that weapons using chems for ammo list magazines of 10, while chem tanks are in increments of 8 per tier? So that doesn't match up right. (It's also confusing for higher tier weapons to have the same magazine entry even though the rules for batteries/tanks indicate you'd actually have larger capacity if you use a level-appropriate one)

With the SF2 Mystic having Heightened +1 on Shadow Snap - can Witch's Malicious Shadow be buffed to also be Heightened +1?

Shadow Snap focus spell - If I'm reading this right, I can cast and sustain it one turn, and have it Attack and Stalk.

And then on future turns it can Attack Attack Stalk for 3 actions? It says "each time you Sustain" and you can sustain multiple times a turn, so...

Feels like it should probably have some restriction because otherwise this is kind of incredible damage per action, especially as Stalk presumably ignores MAP.

Actually, I also note that it doesn't use a reaction for Stalk either, which I'm not sure is intended? Also raises a question of what happens if you Stalk multiple times (probably doesn't work functionally, but could use clarification)

This kind of seems nuts to me, considering the damage is 1d10/rank on a hit. The Stalk is conditional, but... it's at range and they basically can't avoid triggering it unless they're doing nothing at all, so...

Edit: Actually, isn't Heightened (+1) significantly stronger than normal for this kind of effect? Spiritual Armament is Heightened (+2). (Although if you change this, I'd suggest reworking the spell to use d6 for damage so it can stay +1 heightening - damaging focus spells having +2 is really awkward because unlike normal spells you can't swap them out on the off-ranks easily to keep up with damage)

War of Immortals wrote:

As the war god died, his power rained through the many planes of creation, sparking conflict and instilling divine energy in those previously without it. Whether you were directly touched by this power, claimed it from an ancient being or artifact, or whether it awoke something long dormant in your lineage, a spark of the divine now blazes within your soul, granting you abilities, sacred weapons, and divine signifiers that reach into the realm previously reserved for gods and legends.

It's a bit vague, but "claimed it from an ancient being or artifact" and "awoke something long dormant in your lineage" certainly suggests that Exemplars can exist outside the context of the Godsrain if a mortal were to obtain a divine spark in some other way.

Yeah. One of the easier justifications imo is a versatile heritage like Nephilim that's already connected to the divine. Demigods as the descendants of actual gods (and similar - Hungerseed's oni heritage is totally valid too imo, considering Golarion's oni are corrupted kami) is a standard of folklore.

I think, as is...

Water, Fire, and Wood all have a lot of appealing options across the board.

Metal and Earth feel very lackluster at low levels. Metal armor's crit-shattering is frankly a bad idea. A big part of the issue for both elements is having bad level 4 impulses, though Metal feels worse off than Earth (with its level 1 options being the worst armor, two damage impulses, and then the questionable toolmaking impulse, and having less appealing 6/8 impulses than earth too).

Air feels like it needs a little help too (the level 1 impulse spread is unappealing, but boomerang+four winds is at least a useful pair to take, it's just... that's the only pair you'd take?). Level 4 is only really Lightning Dash, but at 6+ it opens up. So overall it's a bit ahead of Earth (though... Earth does have the option of a strength build going full kinetic melee under heavy armor, even if their impulses are less appealing).

Going 2+ elements cleans up a lot of the issues for the less appealing elements... as long as you don't try to include Metal, since it's the most lacking in early utility options.

Instead of solving the issue with expensive magic ammo, what if there was just different kinds of mundane ammo? Using starfinder examples but you can probably find bow equivalents, but have rubber bullets or a stun setting which deals much less damage but makes the opponent off guard on a hit. High powered armor piercing rounds that can go though cover but need bracing to fire accurately. Tracer rounds that make your next shot more accurate, but also helps shots against you. Make it an action to swap between the ammos, and you have the basis of a very interesting ranged combat system. Melee builds need to either attack or do an effect but are fairly safe doing them, while ranged builds can do both at the same time at the cost of risky drawbacks.

It honestly feels strange that alchemical ammo even needs activated. Feels like it should be more like bombs where striking is the activation.