Dubious Scholar's page

Tridus wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Couldn't they also throw holy water?

He can, but Holy Water is not a bomb (surprisingly) so a whole lot of stuff Alchemists get doesn't apply, including feats like Far Lobber and Quick Bomber. So how the character works suddenly changes a lot and that's somewhat confusing to navigate when you're used to having all those feats.

The Raven Black wrote:

Said Alchemist would get Holy bombs by taking the Champion dedication.

Doesn't suit this character at all, unfortunately. We do have a Thaumaturge, so Share Weakness should work I think?

Yes with the usual caveat about Mortal Weakness: "This damage affects the target of your Exploit Vulnerability, as well as any other creatures of the exact same type, but not other creatures with the same weakness."

So, it would work with other Fiends with the exact same type, say all Abrikandilu, but not with other Demons, not to mention other types of Fiends.

There's another feat that upgrades it to apply to anything with that weakness. (And Personal Antithesis upgrades to apply to all creatures of the same type)

I do personally find the legendary solar weapon proficiency at level 19 a bit awkward, because being a proficiency rank above others in Strikes is generally a class-defining strength that is applied much sooner, as with the Operative's proficiency track. Giving the Solarian that proficiency bump does make an impact, but it occurs far too late to define the class's strengths, and in my opinion only contributes to the general feeling that the class's core features are basically more jumbled-up versions of the Fighter's from Pathfinder, from the equivalent of Reactive Strike at level 1 to the equivalent of Battlefield Surveyor at level 7. The class in practice ends up playing differently thanks to their AoE feats, but that takes time and feat investment to come about, and anyone who happens to not take those feats can easily find themselves just playing a worse Fighter in space.

Yeah, I greatly wish some of those were available sooner. As is, it feels like it's space-Fighter until level 6 or so, which is a long time!

Hmm. I'd definitely sneak in my Synthesist Summoner ideas into an upcoming book somewhere. (Honestly, kind of amazed this hasn't found a home yet, it feels really easy to make it work without being broken - just give a free action that can only be used for focus cantrips to make up for act together and it's functional)

If I can tap other people? Absolutely Arcadia lore. We got some tasty tidbits in G&G but only part of the continent.

Though I think a page of generic ancestry feats wouldn't go amiss... it's something I think would be really useful to shore up some ancestries that burn most of their feat budget on very specific things and such.

Striker Operative needs to give a skill other than Athletics. It's not technically broken as written, but it feels broken in spirit.

Operative is the DEX class. Striker is limited to agile/finesse melee weapons (all agile weapons are finesse anyways) and unarmed attacks. You can't start with a +4 in STR, only a +3. And investing in both STR and DEX is really bad for skill proficiencies because there's only one STR skill, etc. And, if all it did was give you trained in a skill you're not going to invest heavily in, it'd be fine.

But Operative also gets 4 free skill feats as they level... for the skill from their specialization, and only that skill. They do not, however, get free skill increases for it, so you need to spend some of your normal skill increases to unlock better skill feats. Honestly? This ability really feels like it was supposed to be skill increases instead of skill feats, because there's a lot of abilities like that in PF2 for classes. Inventor, Swashbuckler, Thaumaturge... And honestly, that would solve the problem here! Free advancement in Athletics would make you good at that even without going heavy on strength.

Honestly, the forced investing into specific skills is kind of bad anyways - did you know there's only 4 skill feats for Computers at all without raising it to Expert? Acrobatics only has 3 (though in party, because for some reason Steady Balance is listing under Athletics, at least on Nethys). So does Stealth. And especially for Stealth sure, you probably focus on it, but still.

So, as I see it... Specialized Skill Set seems like it's supposed to read skill increases and not skill feats. But failing that, Striker either needs the Ruffian treatment (can take STR as KAS) or a different skill (Intimidation, maybe?) Edit: Ahaha. The playtest let them take STR as their KAS even! But honestly... why does Operative's melee subclass push you towards STR instead of DEX?

A few people I've talked to and I think that Seneschal Witch is perfectly fine for Pathfinder Society play and should be allowed as an option even if it has to be with a boon, in the next errata.

The only ability we imagine to be problematic is Patron Glamor and if that's going to be a problem it'd be okay to ban that.

Relationships with PC's patrons in society games don't come up at all in play anyways. All witches might as well have absentee patrons for all the story of the scenarios care. There is no reason to ban it so lets not ban it.

It was made available via charity boons at cons.

Honestly, a lot of classes run into the issue of unequal quality of choices. The Rune Witch is so much worse than other options. Thaumaturge's Bell implement is kind of bad (at least without heavy investment). And so on. Exemplar mostly just has a few more duds than normal I think. (And even then there's enough useful ones to have a lot of options)

Xenocrat wrote:

Maybe someday if we get some Tian Xia books, or an international gathering of magic schools.

We already got the international gathering of magic schools book and while it added 3 schools, none of them were from Tien Xia.

Next best chance for that is probably the next time we get an adventure set there.

I think they were being sarcastic.

Yeah. Better to just tweak the existing one. Non-weapon ikons making strikes is awkward because you don't get full damage that way.

Synthesist Summoner Class Archetype is too much to dare to hope for, but it's something people have wanted for a very long time.

I don't think it even needs a whole lot of space, either. Mainly just something to help action economy of Boost since you can't Act Together and then a way to use spell slots while merged (probably with limits, like only self/touch range spells or something). The cost would be losing the normal Act Together. (Or maybe you can only do a 1-action of it, to still allow some limited use?)

The value of Gaze, imo, is contingent on being able to have it up between turns. +2 AC is good. If it was +2 AC to everything and not just ranged, I think people wouldn't complain at all, because "Raise a shield plus bonus" is reasonable. (Notably though, it's a status bonus and stacks with a lot of things) If you're at range anyways, only being against ranged is more useful.

Part of the issue is Arrow Splits Arrow doesn't play as well with it. Shadow Sheathe and Starshot have somewhat more consistent transcend options to try and end your turn on transcend and start the next with Gaze to flip back to weapon so your attacks always get the weapon damage bonus.

If it applied to all attacks it might actually be too good though? Well, you're likely getting plus one hit out of it. What's interesting is that in some way's it's a preemptive version of Vicious Swing (in the same way Noble Branch is a retroactive one, though Branch is a top tier weapon ikon to begin with). Is "Raise a shield and your next successful attack gains the damage bonus of Vicious Swing" a good option to do every other round? I'd argue it's fantastic for a single action (though of course, this isn't quite that. +1d6 is lower than a full weapon die, especially when Swing is often on 2h d10/d12 weapons, it's only ranged AC, etc).

I do think Gaze is a lot closer to "good" than some of the other non-weapon ikons. Like, Pelt of the Beast is incredibly situational. Bands of Imprisonment is pretty mediocre most of the time. Eye-Catching Spot desperately needs a completely new transcend (because Fascinated in combat is basically a non-condition. A shame, because the immanence would be useful if it just had something better there). Etc.

I know there's a lot of people who will be happy about that "Draconic Kobolds" section.

The loop I theory crafted a while back was alternating between:
Giant-Felling Comet (Starshot)+Strike
Moment Unending (Gaze)+Strike+Reload

That gives two strikes to attempt to proc the Moment precision damage and then the Comet for save. Bonus points if you're size tiny because of the -2 to save against Comet if the target is larger than you. Definitely wants a higher base die rather than deadly/fatal of course.

Battle Harbinger is the doctrine I'm really not sure about, because I really value that pile of emergency heal buttons the other doctrines get to bring. I have to assume they're sticking a heal or two into their slots, which limits their higher rank spells more than Warpriest, and I'm not really sure the auras make up for that (especially when the other doctrines can mimic it with mere rank 1 slots)

Humble Strikes is really interesting for some setups, yeah. Javelins, for instance, become d8 thrown weapons and can do real damage with Shadow Sheathe while leaving hands free for other stuff.

I do think there are some raw damage options for Exemplar - a d12 Gleaming Blade is going to do awful things to most enemies in ways other classes can't actually mimic (Just at level 1, it's two MAP-less strikes for 1d12+6 - I'm fairly sure this easily competes with any other martial because of the second swing's accuracy and how easily it punches through or ignores resistances)

Exemplar reminds me a lot of Thaumaturge in how you're choosing significant abilities from the class itself, and there's a lot of room for going different directions with it. Fetching Bangles lets you control space in a way only Guardians otherwise mimic. Mortal Harvest encourages multiple pickups of Energized Spark to pile more persistent damage on. Horn of Plenty is just begging for Advanced Alchemy.

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.