Exocist's page

Been a while, didn't manage to do 16 and 20 but these classes don't seem to get anything revolutionary at those levels anyway so I doubt it would change the results of this all that much.

I do not like the idea of having a playtest with incomplete core rules, particularly when a few aspects of these classes are hampered by the uncertainty of things changing, but it is what it is.

We just reused the same encounters we did for level 3, level 8 and level 13 here.

Three mechanics (mine, drone and turret) and a technomancer. Not a real party composition, so I expected some struggles, but there was so, so many struggles.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Mechanic

This class has a lot of major issues.

1) Action economy. Modify + X (Co-ordinated fire for drone/turret mechanic) is often 3 actions for this class, leading it to turreting. Mine mechanic is often doing the same thing for round 1 and 2, that being throwing out as many mines as possible by (double) deployment and (double) detonate, then it is... a completely vanilla martial.

2) Flying. For these playtests we ruled that mines could be placed airborne. I do not know if this is meant to be allowed, if not, the mine mechanic has absolutely no way to use their class features against flying enemies. Even with that, the 30 foot range limitation is a pretty substantial one in Starfinder.

3) Feat Tax. So much feat tax, every single subclass feels relegated to taking 4 feats. All of the drone upgrade ones for drone mechanic, or you might as well not have a class. Co-ordinated Fire to make the turret do something, and self-destruct so if it breaks mid combat you can destroy it to redeploy it. Auto-fire feels mandatory as a 30ft range AoO (yes it doesn't have the manipulate or ranged attack trigger, moving within 30ft is still huge). Mine mechanic needs at minimum critical explosion, double deployment and double detonation.

4) Money. Drone and turret mechanics need to buy 2 weapons, one for them and one for the drone/turret. This is extremely expensive with PF2e gold.

5) General power level. The mechanic just didn't really feel like it did anything. Modify slowly became relatively worse and worse over time, not justifying the action cost to use it (particularly at level 13 where aside from the permanent modify it wasn't used at all). Aside from that, what does this class even have? The drone and turret mechanic just felt like martials without class features by then.

There were other more minor issues as well. Mine mechanic was absolutely the strongest of the three (if the mines could be deployed airborne), because the combo of Gravitic Mines and Proximity Alert Mines allowed it to dump out five mines (Instant Deployment + 2x Double Deployment) and explode them all in a single turn. This dealt about 3x the damage of a 7th rank blast spell, which seems incredible....

... but it still wasn't very good. Because the mines' blast zone is limited to a 10ft burst. Which, in the context of Starfinder 2e, is very small. Stellar cannon soldiers know the pain of trying to ever get more than 1 enemy in the burst when enemies do not need to group up. Sure it worked fine against melee enemies but against ranged ones? The mechanic could spend nearly all of its per-fight resources to take out maybe half to three quarters of a lower level enemy.

------------------------------------------------------

Technomancer

There's a few major problems with this class as well.

1) The requirements on Overclock Spell. You have to cast a spell, from a spell slot, then spend another action in the same turn to Overclock. Given the 30ft range on most spells (unsure if this will be fixed in post release), this means you have to start your turn within 30ft of an enemy and not move. Even with a longer range spell, you have to not move or do anything else for benefits that wholly do not feel worth it in the slightest. Overclock was just difficult to use.

I don't know how this class is supposed to play at level 1-2 when you have very few slotted spells, you might as well not have class features.

2) Spellshapes and jailbreak. Technomancer's focus spells are very slightly better than your average Spellshape feat in return for costing a focus point and meaning you don't have any other focus spells on your 3 slot class. The Jailbreak effects are also pretty minor. Overall, it doesn't feel like this class actually does anything that another class can't do better, 3 slots and 6 HP are both serious drawbacks relative to the mystic and the witchwarper for practically nothing in return.

The only unique Spellshape I cared about was Grenade Spell as that was something the other classes couldn't do, but its so incredibly difficult to use, not only because of the small burst area (or high monetary cost) when using grenades, but also because round 1 overclock round 2 jailbreak is not good tempo, and things change drastically.

I just want more unique things out of this class really. Let me feel like I'm altering my spells in ways that no other class can, instead of just giving me numerical stuff. More Grenade Spells, less slightly better reach/widen/nonlethal spells.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Encounters

Here I'd usually write about the encounters and where the classes did well/struggled.

But the truth is, they struggled in almost every single encounter. Nearly all of the encounters at level 8 and 13 they lost. I don't think there was a single encounter where I could say the party as a whole did well. I certainly couldn't pick up any unique contributions from the turret mechanic, drone mechanic or technomancer. Nothing that made me say "oh no one else could have done this".

The Mine mechanic, yes, if there was a number of melee enemies they could do a lot with their mines.

Question regarding Double Deployment and other feats that let you use Deploy Mine

You’ve programmed your exocortex to deploy mines together to create a choke point. You Deploy Mine twice. Both mines must be within 30 feet of one another.

Is this intended to let you use the 2 action version of Deploy Mine, or only the one action version. If it's only the one action version, what's the point of this last sentence?

Didn't have a huge amount of time this go around, and after playing both of these classes, I don't think I really needed more time. Eight combats at level 10, eight at level 20. We severely reduced the difficulty of the combats from the usual severe/extreme blender because it was clear neither of these classes could perform at that level.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Necromancer

Fundamentally this class feels like it was designed for a small corridor, indoor dungeon environment. It just doesn't work correctly outside of that.

The thralls, outside of recurring nightmare, cannot fly. It's questionable whether they can swim. They obviously can't burrow. Given the outright terrible range on your focus spells (as many of them are 10-15 feet from the thrall), that means if an enemy is 20 feet in the air, none of your focus spells function. Same with any party member being 20 feet in the air, you can't muscle barrier them.

In any sort of more open environment, the undead cannot meaningfully block space. They are far too small for that, and you start needing more open environments by higher levels because monsters are too big for dungeons. Never mind the fact that you can just tumble through the thralls anyway. This class never felt like a battlefield controller to me, its control tools were simply inadequate.

2-slot prepared casting feels pretty bad. If you prepare a spell wrong, that's half your spells of that level that are now useless. I'd much rather be spontaneous at 2 slots, at least then half your spells are signatures.

Its action economy is pretty bad as well. The necromancer had beastmaster to deal with the thrall problems, i.e. the fact that they can't move if they want to create thrall and cast a focus spell. Putting thralls in the "right place" is just not really possible with how much the battlefield moves around at higher levels, and how bad your focus spell ranges are. I often found myself with spare thralls on the battlefield that just did nothing except sit there, and having to summon new ones because the range on my spells was too short.

The focus spells do not feel like they make up for the lack of slots, at all, they aren't really substantially better than other class' focus spells, given the additional action cost of having a thrall in the right place to use them. The AoE and ranges do not scale on the low level focus spells, and the higher level ones just... aren't particularly good in the first place.

Most of the time, this class' best contribution was simply casting muscle barrier over and over again. At least I had control over my allies' positioning so they could be within 15 feet of a thrall, and the 50/100 temporary hitpoints was far more impact than any other focus spell was going to get me. By level 20, casting a real spell, even a 6th or 7th rank one, was far better than my focus spells - I would have much, much rather have been any fullcaster by then.

This is easily the worst feeling playtest class I've ever played, at least playtest magus had its highs for all its substantial lows. I never felt like the Necromancer ever had a high point, just many situations where it felt utterly useless and some situations where it was just okay.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Runesmith

This class is analogous to melee magus. It has the exact same list of issues - stringent action economy to get the best damage, reactive strike, any sort of disruption completely hoses it, very squishy with 8 hit points and medium armor.

The difference between this and melee magus is that when it works, it does actually do great damage. Engraving Strike + Trace/Fortifying Knock + Invoke 2-3 runes (depending on how many etched esvadirs you had) is a huge burst of damage, better than even a fighter with a reactive strike.

Again, beastmaster was used to patch up some of its problems, but it still fell flat on its face when the enemy could disrupt it in literally any way (prone, slow, stun, swallow, etc.) or the enemy had high fortitude, or the enemy had reactive strike.

Originally I thought it was 1 rune per invoke when I first read it, upon reading that it was any number, I questioned the point of all those 2-action invoke 2 rune + minor bonus effect feats.

I do appreciate that, unlike many previous iterations of this 8 hp melee class (magus, inventor, investigator, thauma), there is actually a reason to be melee instead of just going for the strictly better ranged which would solve all your problems immediately. The ranged runesmith deals less than half the damage by comparison, and is probably a bit anemic.

Some people will probably appreciate this type of glass cannon class that can have extremely explosive turns, but is susceptible to shattering if it gets hit in the wrong spot - this is certainly not for me though, I don't like my ability to contribute at all being entirely placed in the hands of what monsters the GM decided to field that day.

------------------------------------------

Level 10 combats
Day 1
- 1x Cloud Giant and 1x Deadly Mantis
- 3x Tyrannosaurus
- 6x Chimera (Ankrev head replaces goat head, primal, sonic)
- 7x Aapoph Granitescale and 7x Choral
- (Replaced with) 6x Zecui, 4x Jungle Drake and 6x Choral
Day 2
- 2x Roc and 2x Young Mirage Dragon
- 1x Lich
- 1x Gogiteth and 1x Weak Shadow Giant
- 1x Weak Mukradi

Level 20 combats
Day 1
- 1x Warden of Oceans and Rivers
- 4x Aolaz
- 12x Vilderavn
- 1x Treerazer
Day 2
- 2x Tarn Linnorm
- 3x Weak Nessari
- 2x Elite Guthallath
- 1x Grim Reaper

Same thing but level 16

Same thing but level 13

Same thing but level 8

Same thing but level 3, pre a bunch of errata

Party A

Party B

It's 20th level. Those of you who have played this level range for any length of time know it's not exactly well balanced gameplay, it's broken content fighting against broken content, and if you're not doing something broken you lose to the thing that is.

Which is part of why I test this (the other reason is that no one else does) - the question is: Does your class get anything substantially broken to compete with broken monsters at this level, or are they just a numerical improvement and feel like they've relatively fallen behind since 16th? Do they have any class-specific broken content, or are they just abusing the general broken content (Invisiblity+Hidden Mind, Legendary Sneak, 3rd-rank Heroism wand stack, etc.)

Important to note that, due to the size and speed of many creatures at this level, alongside the fact that nearly all of them have flight, maps fundamentally do not matter. As such, we just used mechageddon maps, which tend to be large open fields.

---------------------------------------------------------------

System mechanics and general stuff

Not going to talk about anything broken in PF2e at this level range, I don't expect SF2e to fix this, so there's only a couple of points

1) Borai. This didn't really show up before because we only had 1 Borai, but for 20A, just to have a chance against one specific encounter, party A is all Borais. Borai... don't really work correctly right now, as an undead without void healing, they cause game mechanics to become dysfunctional in a couple of ways.

A) Anything that refers to a living creatures. Spells like desiccate can only target living creatures. Treerazer's Aura of Corruption. The Grim Reaper's Aura of Misfortune. Wails of the Damned. All of these, and more, completely blank on Borai. Granted, undead from Book of the Dead have the same problem, so its not as much of a concern as...

B) Things that specifically have different effects for Undead and Living Creatures. Spells like Execute do Vitality damage to undead and Void damage to living creatures. The authors seemed to assume that all undead would have void healing, so a Borai, being undead, takes the vitality damage - which they are immune to, because they don't have void healing. Same with monster mechanics like the Yamaraj's Shepherd's Touch.

2) The New Game spell. Specifically the PvP mode, it's really unclear how exactly it works. I simply assumed it worked like the Fated Confrontation spell in PF2e, but there's far less text actually explaining it than in Fated Confrontation. What's the terrain? Where do both participants spawn? Can anyone else affect creatures inside the game?

-----------------------------------------------------------

Envoy

At this level we have finally gotten Get Them! and True Leader, improving action economy significantly and making Get 'Em! finally feel like it works against swarms. Unfortunately, the Envoy still really doesn't have anything else to actually use this action economy on - Demoralize, Strike, Scare to Death. That's pretty much it.

While it has improved since 16th, it hasn't improved relative to the most threatening monsters that are faced at 20th, so I feel like it's relatively gotten weaker.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mystic

Due to some specific playtest stuff, and wanting to test things out, I had a skill challenge that awarded off list spells from the SF2e playtest book just to see if they would be cast, which the Mystic used to pick up New Game. They did cast it twice, and it did help a bit. Other than that, they have picked up Enlightenment which makes their healing even more effective.

However, monsters that interact solely on doing single-target damage are the least threatening enemies by far at this level. While the mystic can heal any one person to full HP over and over again, this really isn't as useful as it may seem against the most threatening of enemies.

They don't really have anything broken outside of that, so while I'd say they're slightly stronger relatively than they were at 16th, it's a miniscule increase.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Operative

We have divergence in feat choice yet again.

Striker Operative goes for Tactical Assault and Infinite Aim. Tactical Barrage didn't really feel that much better than Line 'Em Up, and Infinite Aim, outside of synergy with Tactical Assault, felt extremely redundant with how much aim compression operative has.

Ghost Operative goes for Combat Reflexes. Combined with Dual Aim, this means 3 hair triggers per round, substantially increasing their damage output.

Both of them get Tactical Barrage from class features, which is a significant increase in damage as expected, and really not necessary.

With Combat Reflexes, it's definitely relatively stronger than it was at 16th, with Infinite Aim, it's the same or slightly weaker.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Solarian

This is the class that needs Quickened for Strike most, and unlike everyone else who gets it from Quicklock at 16th-17th, Solarian needs to take Cosmic Alignment to get it.

They really struggled with the increased speed and map size, the bonuses they've gotten since 16th (Legendary Solar Weapon, Cosmic Alignment) while they feel like they should be significant, they really... aren't? The class overall felt much weaker relatively at 20th.

Really struggled to use either Big Bang or Supernova at this level. Kinda just felt like a worse fighter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Soldier

Seeing on level enemies critically fail their reflex saves on an 8 doesn't get old.

With Spread the Love and Hybrid Technique, alongside Legendary DC, their damage has actually scaled quite well.

It certainly helped that both soldiers were on the party with the Witchwarper, who used Complete Transposition to put all the enemies into a blob for Area Fire, but even without that I think they're about the same power relatively as they were at 16th.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Witchwarper

Warped Infinities making your quantum field a 100ft burst suddenly is a massive bonus, however if we were just stuck using Twisted Dark Zone as our only relevant Zone option, it wouldn't mean too much.

This class instantly became broken due to Complete Transposition. With Warped Infinities, this feat is utterly bananas. Teleport everyone in your 100ft burst Quantum Field to anywhere in a 100ft burst within 100ft of you. One action, not once per round. Sure, enemies get a will save to resist, but who cares? Against single or double enemies, moving your entire party up to 200+ feet for 1 action is stellar action economy. Against a horde of lower level enemies, you can bunch them all up then nuke them with AoE attacks.

While this is incredibly overpowered, it also feels like something the Witchwarper should be able to do. 100ft burst and anywhere within 100ft of you is obviously way too much, but back when the quantum field was a 15ft burst, if you could teleport anyone who stayed in your quantum field a little bit - say, 30 feet or so, remember this is a ranged game so the forced movement distances have to be a bit bigger to compensate for the fact that no one naturally groups - it would be pretty fun.

I took Quantum Negation for my 20th feat. As a focus spell, its cute, but its not that great. Vastly overshadowed by Complete Transposition.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Encounters

1) 8x Vilderavn and 8x Shemhazian (160XP)
- Was originally going to be 8 Giyleas instead of 8 Vilderavns, but the Giyleas have detonate magic. While this spell is less of a problem in Starfinder than it is in Pathfinder (where you can get your +3 major striking weapon or +3 greater/major resilient armor detonated then be useless for a week) as weapons/armor are nonmagical, things like Apex augmentations (if you chose magitech), any magitech augmentations, etc. can still be detonated for a week long debuff. In the interest of playtesting things instead of having them be disabled on the first encounter, we replaced those.
- Neither party really struggles with fighting these.
- Party A heals off any damage taken with Transfer Vitality and Infusion, divine decree banishes a few of them
- Party B groups up most of the enemies with Complete Transposition, denies turns with Twisted Dark Zone, Ghost Operative Line 'Em Up or Terrified Retreat, and then shreds through their health bars with Line 'Em Up and two soldiers Area Firing (this will become a common theme). Enemies barely even get to take actual turns. These 16 enemies got a total of 2 turns where they weren't stunned, fleeing, confused or out of range to do anything.

2) 4x Guthallath and 1x Elite Guthallath (160XP)
- This monster has been nerfed since the original printing, I have run the original where, as a 60XP encounter for a level 18 party, it caused 3/4 characters to die instantly on its first turn. Admittedly, 2 natural 1 saves against the 10th-level disintegrate beams were rolled, but it's still pretty silly.
- Party A needs 4 tries. 13d10 AoE death effect, combined with their extreme attack/high damage (effectively extreme damage when you factor in their 3d12 deadly) leads to the Solarian dying, a lot. Operative, envoy and mystic all have legendary stealth so they can just be undetected, Solarian does not. Even then, they only win on the 4th try due to bad Guthallath attack roll RNG, and the mystic using New Game, a spell that isn't on their list.
- Party B does it in 1 try. Guthallaths get grouped up, confused and/or stunned and shredded by AoE. The Guthallaths take a grand total of 0 turns where they weren't confused, fleeing and/or stunned.

3) 2x Elite Nessari and 1x Nessari (160XP)
- Party A needs 2 tries, mystic gets repeatedly hit + poisoned due to their bad initiative roll before they can take a turn. When they can take a turn, they have 18 HP and are stuck between 3 Nessaris who have Reactive Strikes that trigger on concentrates. As the only party member who can do the Holy damage (or death effect) necessary to kill these things, it's a loss. Second time, better initiative and bad nessari attack rolls means win.
- Party B does it in 1 try. A bit close, the Nessaris can't be kited with Complete Transposition as they can always Masterful Quickened Casting Fireball->Fireball to be effective at 500 feet away. Operative doesn't get their crits to stun early enough. Repair Module on the Witchwarper keeps them alive. Despite the bad initiative, the party still turns this into a win after 7 rounds.

4) 2x Elite Grim Reaper (160XP)
- If you read this encounter and went "oh god why?" know that this is the only 22nd-level monster using remastered content that's even remotely threatening. The rest can easily be rendered mostly ineffective by a fly speed.
- Party A takes 4 tries and loses all 4 of them. Even with a full stack of Borai meaning that Aura of Misfortune doesn't work. Even with two save rerolls from Persistent Confidence and Stubborn As.... It's a grossly overpowered enemy. Their first try was the one with the most promise, they got absurdly lucky getting twenty 11+ rolls to only five rolls of 10 or less, whereas the reapers got four 11+s, eight 10 or less and missed two important Lurking Death attacks (which hit on a 3). Still, in that run, the Envoy died to Death Strike after the party managed to put down 1 reaper. In following runs, the party did not get as lucky, and someone died to Death Strike before even a single reaper died.
- Party B does it in 1 try. The luck was... average, I'd say. The reapers still only got four 11+s and seven 10 or lesses, and the Witchwarper passed 2 saves against Death Strikes with rerolls (only ~57% chance to pass the save with a reroll), but the operative also didn't get any crits past round 1, when their crit chance with Clustered Shots, 9th-rank Heroism and master proficiency aid was 64%. Takes 4 rounds, and involves some kiting (or the threat of kiting) with Complete Transposition denying turns and Lurking Deaths, but they get there.

5) 8x Ancient Mirage Dragon (160XP)
- Do you notice how literally every SF class has resolve? Yep, combined with hidden mind's +4 status bonus to mental saves, this makes the breath weapons a non factor. All they can do is try to kite with their 180 foot fly speed, and do a flanking dance to get sneak attack.
- Party A just heals off any damage they can do to the mystic, then kills them one by one.
- Party B... you guessed it, groups them up with Complete Transposition, denies turns with Twisted Dark Zone, Ghost Operative Line 'Em Up and Terrified Retreat, then shreds down HP with Line 'Em Up and Area Fires. The dragons get 3 total turns where they're able to do something.

6) 11x Makosa (165XP)
- Everyone still has resolve and hidden mind. That renders their Phantasmal Calamities useless, and... they don't have much after that.
- Party A just grinds through them one by one while the Makosas can't do much damage.
- Party B groups up, denies turns and shreds with AoE (made better by the Makosas' fire weakness 20). The Makosas get 0 real turns.

7) 2x Yamaraj and 2x Ancient Diabolic Dragon (160XP)
- An encounter I thought would be more threatening than it really was.
- Party A gets through it in one try. Maybe they got kind of lucky. Envoy, Solarian and Operative are able to burst down one Yamaraj before it gets a turn, then mystic locks the second one in combat with the Solarian using New Game preventing it from reviving the first.
- Everyone except the mystic has evasion, and the dragons don't have an answer to advanced cloaking skin so it's easy cleanup from there.
- Party B also gets through it in one try. Again, enemies are grouped up by Complete Transposition, witchwarper uses true target to give operative a staggering 84% crit chance on Line 'Em Up with Master Aid, Off-Guard and Frightened 2 from critical demoralize (opening roar). They stun the entire encounter and it's just easy cleanup of Area Fires and Line 'Em Ups from there (featuring a second stun on the entire encounter with a second Line 'Em Up). The only one that gets a turn is the Yamaraj who beat the party in initiative.

8) 1x Treerazer (200XP)
- Anyone who has fought this guy before knows that he's a complete pushover at 20th. He can't really do all that much except Strike for some damage, and his damage isn't good enough to meaningfully threaten characters at this level even if he lands 2 crits in a row. The Stunned 2 on crit is cute, but it's not nearly enough cheese factor.
- Party A just grinds through him the normal way, healing off any damage he can do. Being a full stack of Borais, they're immune to his Aura of Corruption, and his desiccate, leaving Strike as his only real option. Not that the extra 2d12 damage would have helped him much.
- Party B kites him around the map with Complete Transposition. Complete Transposition moves the party about 200 feet, and Treerazer's fly speed is only 60 feet (40 feet if suppressed by Anchoring Impacts). He can't punish Concentrate actions with his Reactive Strike so... once he's used up his single copy of desiccate and freeze time, he can't actually damage the party at all. They kill him with Manifestation -> Holy Light.

Same thing but level 13

Same thing but level 8

Same thing but at level 3, pre a bunch of errata

Party A

Party B

A few things changed this time, mostly in relation to party B. Party A feels very similar.

We also decided to try out massive maps (enemies and players deploy ~200ft away from each other) and... they really didn't go well.

In case we don't manage to finish level 20 by the 31st December deadline, I'll just leave my general major system issues here as well.

------------------------------------------------------

Major system issues

1) Cover, AoEs, ranged combat and map design. Grouped together for being very related.

This is not in reference to any specific rules, because specifics can be fixed, but rather a ground up design problem. One that Lancer actually dealt with a lot during its development, and eventually (mostly) solved.

The core issue: Ranged combat as a default makes it very easy to just stand wherever, and kite forever if your speed is higher. Which makes it very hard or near impossible to land any sort of AoEs on more than 1 target.

If you respond to this by making the map littered with tight chokepoints, low ceilings and narrow corridors, it becomes a melee centric game where no one can shoot each other because no one can really see each other.

The core combat mechanics are really not designed with ranged-as-a-default in mind and its impacts on positioning. It still fundamentally feels like many options were designed around melee blob positioning being a default when it just isn't.

Cover is really easy for a ranged character to maneuver around unless you start combat really far away, in which case it's two sides barely hitting each other and is kind of a slog.

How did Lancer solve this? Objectives. It's an extremely simple solution that does so much to make ranged combat more dynamic. Essentially, forcing PCs and enemies to be on certain points if they want to actually win the combat. Also comes with the benefit of defeat != TPK. Needs either a round limit or constant reinforcements to work correctly, and even then some balancing needs to be done on the rate of reinforcement/round limit, but it solves practically all the issues that ranged combat as a default creates.

I don't think Starfinder wants to go this direction though - that every combat or nearly every combat should have an objective that is the "main" threat.

In which case you need to create general incentives for people to group up. You need to make it so that indefinitely kiting enemies with superior range and speed isn't the way to win every combat against slower opponents. You need to make maps that have sensible sight and cover lines, not too open, but also not line of sight blocked in every direction.

The current flip-mats really don't work well on the third front.

2) Economy. This is both the action economy and the wealth economy.

It genuinely feels really, really difficult to have or use multiple weapons, and as far as I understand this is a core thing that Starfinder wants you to do. The action economy to swap weapons feels rather stifling with many of the existing classes, drawing and throwing grenades, etc. Then comes the cost of actually having multiple weapons against WBL guidelines. You do really feel like you just have 1 main weapon, and that's all.

-------------------------------------------------------

Core system mechanics and class-agnostic things not mentioned before

1) As an experiment, I decided to give out 4 ultimate missile launchers, 4 superior undermounted grenade launchers, 4 ultimate grenade launchers and 100 of each type of paragon grenade and missile, with the stipulation that none of these items could be sold, just to see if these above-levelled items would be useful at all. The answer was no.

Because of how heavily incentivised everyone is to use a two handed ranged weapon, grenades are effectively 3 actions (draw, throw, interact to regrip), and for that price they're really not worth it. The superior undermounted grenade launcher isn't worth the loss of an elemental damage module. Even at 1 action (such as for the Solarian, which still comes at a cost of not having their agile, twin weapon offhanded) they still don't feel particularly impactful. There's no "free draw" things like Sleeves of Storage, Retrieval Prism or an Independent+Manual Dexterity Familiar (to hold 2 items and hand one to you as its action) to do this more than once per combat, though. When you add on the cost of actually using them (in credits) it becomes so much worse.

There was some point of confusion about how both of these work with the Soldier's primary target feature - do you get 2 grenade shots or missile attacks? They are Area Fire. Ultimately, though, neither Soldier would have used them because of the capacity limit. The Grenade launcher has 6 grenades, the missile launcher has 4 missiles. The Soldiers currently burn through ammo extremely quickly - Area Fire, Primary Target, Fanning the Hammer, Overwatch and Soldier's Training for another Overwatch - that's five shots per round. They'd much rather be using battery weapons for a 50 or 100 round clip.

2) Singularity Seed. Is it busted? Yes.

More expounding on that. Athletics only to Escape, while being unable to do anything else is a start, but its more on how it works alongside that. Moving away from it is difficult terrain, and after every move action and at the end of your turn, you have to save or get dragged closer to the center. Any enemy with a speed of 40 or less is going to find it incredibly difficult to ever get away from this thing, and even if they do manage to escape... where can they realistically go before they end of turn save prompts to force them back in again?

---------------------------------------------------

Envoy

By this point Directives are not being used at all aside from the 1/combat Show Em What You Got! (and even then that might not be used) and Ready to Roll.

The reason for this is Ready for Anything. The Envoy now has 2/round easy to trigger reaction strikes with That'll Show Em and Ready for Anything, which increases their damage substantially despite their lack of any actual damage booster without Get 'Em, and attacking on a secondary stat.

Get 'Em is really just... not that good at this level, advanced cloaking skin making everything off guard already, swarms of lower level enemies are much more dangerous than a singular higher level enemy, and Get 'Em falls off if the target dies. You have to wait until level 18 to have Get 'Em function the same way that Courageous Anthem does at level 1.

So essentially this is playing as a featureless class with 2/round reaction attacks, and it's effective at that but quite boring. Even if this wasn't the case, it's not like the Envoy has many real options for its actions - Get 'Em, Demoralize, Show Em What You Got!, Strike. That's practically it.

The other directives have never been used.

------------------------------------------------------------

Mystic

Plays essentially the same. Infusion, anthem. Some of these encounters even required dipping into slots for Heal. Gasp, the horror. None of its feats have really changed anything in regards to play.

Still effective just being a healer.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Operative

The two operatives diverged a bit in feats here.

Striker Operative went for Instant Reload, giving them insane mobility... that mattered a couple of times, but 100ft range and Aim really limited the need for them to even use it. Clustered Shots for single targets, Line 'Em Up for swarms. Hair Trigger for a free reaction attack every turn.

Ghost Operative took Dual Aim because they had a problem where after a crit Line 'Em Up, all those stunned enemies couldn't trigger Hair Trigger because they couldn't act (suffering from success I know). Again, Clustered Shots for single targets, Line 'Em Up for swarms. In one instance a level+3 boss spent half the combat stunned by the Ghost Operative.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Solarian

This class just feels like it's falling further and further behind. Big Bang was essentially just a worse Supernova, 3 actions and disharmony, for less damage and no blind? Why is this level 15 feature worse than the level 1 feature? As such it wasn't used aside from just using it for the heck of it because it's really hard to use.

Its damage falls behind due to lack of elemental module stacking. Graviton has never been intentionally swapped to because it's just not relevant. None of the feats its picked up since level 6 have been useful.

We were debating whether Stellar Shield Collapse with cheese (have an ally punch you and keep blocking it, Dermal Plating prevents you taking damage but the shield loses HP) to put the shield down to 1-6 hit points, so it would be destroyed in 1 block, would be worthwhile. Ultimately the issue is that you still have to raise the shield, be attacked (the Solarian is the lowest priority target) and the attack has to be shield block-able. So it wasn't taken.

Note from Edna (verbatim)

The higher-level solarian is, earnestly, genuinely, one of the most miserable experiences I have had playing a tabletop RPG character. It feels so outdated, falling behind due to itemization (or lack thereof) and a dearth of good feats.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Soldier

Fanning the Hammer is a crazy feat. We emergency ruled it to be [Flourish] so triple Fanning the Hammer turns didn't happen, but it's still an incredibly overpowered option.

It skyrockets soldier's damage against single targets to be on average above the operative, and yes this is an AoE class that does AoE damage with it.

Due to map constraints (still) because many enemies simply cannot deal with a 60 foot fly speed, the AoEs are much more effective. Doesn't really matter though because the Soldier's single target damage is still above the operative's. AoE is a bonus.

The Bombard has swapped their Stellar Cannon to a Zero Cannon. Much easier to hit 2 enemies on area fire with it, and due to the rate of ammo consumption reloading the Stellar became a real problem. The Zero Cannon never needs to reload.

For the same ammo reason, the action hero is now using a Rotolaser as their main weapon.

I can't stress enough just how much better many of these area and auto weapons feel with Spatial Drift adding just 10 feet to their range.

--------------------------------------------------------

Witchwarper

Feels exactly the same as they did 3 levels ago. Twisted Dark Zone is a gamechanger, everything else... not so much, they're just a basic caster.

I'm looking forward to picking up Complete Transposition at level 18 - that's the kind of thing I feel my Quantum Field should be able to do. I don't understand why it takes that long to get it.

The actual effect of the quantum field is still not relevant. The speed penalty doesn't stack with suppress, and the speed bonus doesn't stack with tailwind/on the move.

---------------------------------------------------------

Encounters

Encounter 1 - 8x Elite Shimmerspawn (160XP)
- 25 foot speed, low range (it has a ranged attack but its a full 3 points of attack bonus behind its melee attack) monster with only a 15ft cone as its anti-invisibility tool.
- Party A only takes some damage because the Solarian is forced to melee these guys, everyone else can just fly 60 feet away where they can't hope to damage them (even if they could use the cone, 3/4 party members have evasion).
- Party B - well, a stack of low speed, low reflex, enemies with weakness is just food for Anchoring Impacts double soldiers. They take no damage. Twisted Dark Zone helps a bit too.

Encounter 2 - 2x Elite Makosa, they start ~200 feet away from the party's deployment zone. (160XP)
- Of course this is stacked in the Makosas' favour, due to their 500ft range spells, whereas the party with their max 100ft range increment weapons needs to close distance.
- Party A needs to do this twice, some bad luck against Telekinetic Tantrum the first go around and some Phantasmal Calamities later, they're pretty badly beat and the mystic cannot get in range to heal people due to the short 30ft range. They're essentially turn skipped in their first round due to needing to close distance. A better initiative result just lets them brute force it.
- Party B only needs 1 try. No Solarian, the soldiers are capable of closing distance rather quickly and still dealing damage with shot on the run + cardiac accelerator. Fire weakness 20 is a great time for the soldiers.
- Witchwarper feels rather useless this encounter, with many spells being limited to 30ft range, and the Quantum Field being limited to 100ft range, they just can't get in range to do anything. Being constantly stunned and proned by Tantrum doesn't help.

Encounter 3 - 16x Kurshudi (160XP)
- At least it has an invisibility answer due to Area Fire being its main attack.
- Singularity seed utterly destroys these 30 speed low reflex monsters though.
- Party A takes a really long time to kill these guys even with the Seed taking out 10 of them. High HP + Regen deactivated by acid (only the operative has an acid weapon in the acid dart rifle) + resist to all the damage modules = a long time to die. Mystic takes about 50 rockets to the face and still doesn't go down due to energy aegis cutting the damage a bit, and self-healing.
- Party B takes less time, and that's despite the operative crit failing twice against divine wrath. Seed takes out 10 of them, Line 'Em Up acid shots and Scare to Death take out the rest.

Encounter 4 - 8x Atrocite, again they start ~150ft away, preventing use of Opening Roar + Terrified Retreat (160XP)
- 2x Void Scours, high attack and high damage ranged strikes, x8, with inherent true seeing to get by invisibility.
- Party A is more suited to dealing with this, with 3/4 characters having evasion, and even then they need 2 tries. These things just output so much damage that the Mystic ends up hitting 0, and once they're at 0 void scours are still hitting them along with the rest of the party.
- Party B needs 3 tries and even then they barely get over the finish line with the third try. Eight rounds of suffering, won mostly because the Atrocites ran out of void scours and relied on their strikes (which still hit very hard).
- Again, this high range start feels really, really bad for the party while the enemies who have a 500ft range spell are barely effective. If both characters were limited to the same range, it would just be one side gap closing on their first turns.

Encounter 5 - 8x Elite Shimmerstone Robot (160XP)
- Low speed, mostly melee enemy with only a short range area fire and weakness to 2 damage types that are on elemental modules. Can't see this going well for team enemy.
- Party A elects to use absolutely zero resources, and due to an incredibly fortunate series of rolls on the Robots' part, Mystic nearly hits 0. Very easy cleanup afterwards.
- Party B... well, Anchoring Impacts + Soldier AoEs with enemies that have effectively weakness 20 to the damage. Gets out of this having barely taken any damage and no resources used.

Encounter 6 - 16x Elite Sihedron Guard Specialists (160XP)
- I used the Undercity map here because I felt these dudes might be able to do something with Wall of Plasma. They mostly just ended up walling themselves though. Again, no invisibility answer (Aside from dropping Wall of Plasma directly on top of someone) makes these guys virtually a non threat.
- Party A finally uses Wormhole at least to jump by some Walls of Plasma (otherwise Solarian would have to cross 5 of them to deal damage which would be pretty bad for them). Eight round kiting slog that really can't inflict much damage through hidden.
- Party B gets the more aggressive variation of the specialists who try to inflict damage using Battle Casting, Promession and Caustic Conversion, alongside opportunistic walls of plasma dropped on top of people to deal damage. They also kind of fail miserably at that, though out of 8 scare to death criticals, 7 of the guard specialists rolled 18+ (where a 17 or less on the fortitude save against the heroism 6'd action hero soldier would have killed them). Still not threatening.

Encounter 7 - 1x Ancient Fortune Dragon and 4x Elite Sediya Vrath (160XP)
- Simple concept, the healers heal the boss.
- Party A gets kind of lucky with the Mystic escaping from Quandary (they need a natural 20 to do so, any other result is a fail or critical fail), but even then the dragon has no invisibility answer outside of its AoEs, and party A can just kite it around walls so it can't use those if it wants to Sustain Quandary. If it doesn't Sustain Quandary, its damage can't outpace the Mystic's healing. Not a difficult encounter.
- Party B chain stuns the dragon with Ghost Operative, making this a fairly easy win even despite some bad saves against its AoEs on the rounds it can act.

Encounter 8 - 1x Tarn Linnorm (160XP)
- It has True Seeing and Party A does not have hidden mind.
- Party A needs 2 tries and even then they barely win on the second try, with multiple opportunities where a crit -> crit failed poison save, or hit->crit failed poison save, or crit->failed poison save could have killed someone outright. Mystic deactivates regen with Impaling Spike, operative finishes it.
- Party B has hidden mind from the witchwarper, which negates true seeing on everyone but the bombard (crit failed the counteract check), making this fight pretty trivial. Operative even rolls badly, scoring 0 crits despite offguard, heroism 6, aid and clustered shots (no Synesthesia to lower defences because that's PC2). Witchwarper kills it with Vision of Death.

Same thing but level 8

Same thing but level 3, before a bunch of errata

Party A

Party B (yes there's a reason they have so many credits spare, it's because I felt like testing Fabricator).

A lot of things changed relative to level 3 and 8 this time. Plenty of things came online, and I'm not sure many of them were for the better.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Core System Mechanics and general stuff

1) At this point, every single light armor character (which is everyone except Soldier) can have 40 or 60 feet of fly speed through Ultralight Wings, alongside a massive range from laser rifles. Enemies do not seem to have been built to account for this with many of them still boasting a rather short 30 foot range, with a speed of 20-30 and a similar fly speed.

This, of course, meant that I had to make a lot of maps boxed indoors, otherwise the party would easily win by kiting the enemies infinitely with their superior range and far superior speed, while the enemies can barely land a scratch on them. This made Area Fire feel a lot better, combined with the fact that a 16 stack of level-4 enemies with save-for-halfs is a threatening encounter at this level, the soldiers' Area Fires were feasting.

2) It was already tenuous before, but Cover really no longer matters at this point. Many enemies are too large to effectively make use of it, and PCs just have better things to do.

3) Area weapons and hordes of enemies. Something needs to be done to cut down on the dice rolling here, because each crit fail prompts crit effects, which tend to involve saves. When fighting a stack of lower level enemies, having 4 of them crit fail, prompting 2 more saves each (projectile crit spec, frost module) as well as a check for shock module was really tedious in play.

4) Ammo counting. Seriously the most annoying thing ever. When you have people with 50 shot before reload weapons (i.e. never going to reload), comparing to your 20 shot that needs 2 bullets per person in the cone weapon, or your 8 shot but you need 2 shots to area fire and also 1 shot for your reaction attack weapon... it's really easy to lose track of how many bullets you have left after 3 or 4 rounds. Do you need to reload? Don't really know. This mechanic really needs a cleanup, if Ammo is supposed to matter make it matter don't give guns 50 shots before reloading. If it's not supposed to matter, don't have reloading. Don't make me count how many individual bullets out of my 20 clip I've used where each person in a cone costs 2 bullets.

5) Cloaking Skin, Advanced is a broken item. 3/day 4th rank invisibility for 1 action. Very, very few enemies have an answer to invisibility, and invisibility 4 is a silly powerful offensive (everything is off-guard) and defensive buff. Combined with the ruling that you don't need to do a flat check to target yourself (we asked in numerous places and this was the almost universally agreed upon consensus) made it virtually impossible to actually get anyone to 0. The entire party having easy access to Off-Guard by this made Get 'Em a lot worse than it already was.

6) Opening Roar might be one of the most broken feats ever printed. Combined with Terrified Retreat, especially on multiple characters, you can have a fair amount of the enemy team fleeing on initiative roll. This happened on multiple occasions. It's also unclear if it's supposed to demoralize 2, 3 or 4 enemies. We ruled 2, so we were playing it at its weakest.

7) You probably already knew, but Fabricator is broken. You probably shouldn't be making 180,000 credits per month (it's crafting so you need an equivalent amount of credits to earn that money but still) at level 13 when regular Earn Income makes 4500.

8) Dermal Plating, even in the context of Starfinder, might be too efficient for the price. A good chunk of enemies still do physical damage.

9) Despite the above tight, sealed off maps... grenades and missiles were still useless. That's despite me giving above-levelled (ultimate) grenades and missiles at level 13. They just didn't do enough for the action cost.

---------------------------------------------------------

Envoy

Due to the aforementioned "Cloaking Skin, Advanced" on everyone, alongside a lot of encounters which featured many lower level enemies, Get 'Em! was hardly used over just doing another Strike. Fortunately, the Envoy picked up "That'll Show Em!" at this level, which gave them an easily triggerable reaction attack. They are strongly considering taking Ready For Anything for the 16th level playtests and just not using any of their directives at all, because an extra trigger of That'll Show 'Em is better than their directives.

Show Em What You Got! Was okay. Needing to choose your role at the start of the day rather than when its used makes it incredibly inflexible, so everyone just picked Striker except for the Mystic who picked spellcaster. Also Defender being specifically on the "Next time you're attacked", rather than you getting to choose, means it's easily wasted. It really does just feel like a 2 action, worse, True Target though.

------------------------------------------------------------

Mystic

Pretty much the same, except now with everyone being invisible their healing is effectively twice as good. We ruled that, for functionality purposes, Extended Vitality meant transfer vitality did not need to check concealment/invisibility.

Didn't use any of their higher level focus spells, just Anthem and Infusion.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Operative

Striker operative is practically the same as before. Added Overwhelming Strike so they can suppress things (off guard didn't matter due to the Cloaking Skins).

Ghost Operative, however, got one broken tool: Line 'Em Up. As far as I can tell, if you're undetected to each enemy in the line (because you sneaked) and crit, it will stun all of them. This is so incredibly overpowered that 3 of the encounters just ended to nearly the entire opfor being chain stunned by a line attack. Of course, it's still pretty binary, you can fail the sneak, or you can only hit the attack after the sneak, but against encounters with multiple lower level enemies - combined with the offguard from undetected, and Aid from an ally, with the fact that you only roll once, you can very reliably crit the entire line.

Also combined with Anchoring Impacts and Twisted Dark Zone very well, as most enemies simply couldn't move very far if at all, keeping them in a line.

I expect this to get even more degenerate at level 16 when Clustered Shots is picked up, makes critting single enemies more consistent. Fish in a Barrel would do the same, but getting an enemy immobilized or prone is a bit more difficult.

If you are playing with PF2e material, do not let the Ghost Operative take Supreme Sneak.

---------------------------------------------------

Solarian

The smaller rooms helped them a lot with Supernovas, but their damage just wasn't there. Everyone else has 3 damage modules, the Solarian has 1, making their damage just on par with the Envoy. None of their feats have given them any meaningful power growth since level 8, and the player does not think that level 16 will change this either.

---------------------------------------------------

Soldier

A class that's gotten a huge glow-up since its humble beginnings at level 3.

Anchoring Impacts doubles down on Suppressed's already existing issues to make it even more binary. 20 or 25 speed enemies can basically not move at all when suppressed, whereas those 180 speed dragons? Still basically unaffected. The stunned 1 on CF is nice when it shows up.

It's also a feedback loop of sorts. You Anchoring Impacts the entire enemy team. They can't move, so they're stuck in place for the next Area Fire, which makes them unable to move...

I am unsure why this class gets master weapons at level 15 instead of 13 like a normal martial, while they get expert weapons at level 5 (on time). The reduction of to-hit was noticeable.

Spatial Drift made a lot of the area weapons a lot better, simply extending their range by 10 feet made the Flamethrower have a decent sized AoE. The Action Hero had pretty enormous AoEs with it. Sadly I didn't end up using a Magnetar, as I needed my general feats for other things, and we ruled it couldn't be gotten with unconventional weaponry.

-------------------------------------

Witchwarper

Another class that's gotten a huge glow up but not in ways I think is intentional.

For starters, Twisted Dark Zone. Hooray, my Quantum Field finally matters because I can put a decent effect on it. You become acutely aware of just how many SF enemies are weirdly lacking in Darkvision when you use this, and your team is immune because of the 24 hour immunity making you able to just throw it on them at the start of the day, making them immune to it for the rest of the day.

The Confusion effect is very solid as well. For some reason nothing about this ability is [Mental], so all of those mindless low will enemies can still get confused by this. With many starfinder enemies having ranged attacks, this means they'll stand in place making ranged attacks... which means they were also standing in place to get hit by more Area/Auto-Fire and Line 'Em Up. The blinded (from darkness with no darkvision) stacked with Anchoring Impacts to make all of those 25 speed enemies unable to move, because 5 foot speed + everything is difficult terrain.

Focus spells, they were okay. Time Loop is reasonable for the same reason Twisted Dark Zone is - it's not mental. The range is also good because its anywhere in your Quantum Field. Warp Time was by far the most used focus spell just because it's 1 action for 25 temporary HP.

Still found it difficult to use their "real" spells due to difficulty using them and sustaining the quantum field. Outside of Soothe to heal themself, and Contingency for Invisibility 4 on themself, not many spells were used.

--------------------------------------------

Encounters

For all encounters to prevent indefinite stalling due to game mechanics, the emergency rule "If the party is not turtling, they automatically win at the end of round 10" is in play.

- 1) 2 Comet Wasp Swarms and 8 Heliacal Maw Ferocitums (160XP)
- Party A gets 3 crit Opening Roars and a Wall of Stone, making this encounter a joke as the enemies simply cannot output damage through that.
- Party B drops down a Twisted Dark Zone (Ferocitums don't have Darkvision), and combined with Anchoring Impacts the Ferocitums can't move at all. Once the swarms are dealt with, the encounter is over.

- 2) 6 Swarm Dissolvers and 7 Fangs of the Devourer (160 XP)
- Party A crits some opening roars and mostly enters cleanup from there. Mystic throws out Chain Lightning for the heck of it but didn't really need to.
- Party B drops down a Twisted Dark Zone and shreds this encounter with Area/Auto Fires and Line 'Em Up. Some unlucky natural 1s on Devourer's Teeth stopped some momentum as the Soldiers couldn't do anything while slowed 2, but overall not threatening.

- 3) 16 Kehtarian Mulch Munchers (160 XP)
- Party A actually has some issues with this. Wall of Stone stems the bleeding a bit, but repeated instances of 8d8 sonic save-for-half does wear them down, with the Mulch Munchers recharging each others' Sonic Breaths. Eventually the Incendiary Grenades are brought out to end the fight a bit faster. It was an ideal situation for the Incendiary Grenade - tiny room with packed, fire weak enemies and even then it was just... okay.
- Party B drops down a Twisted Dark Zone, making the Munchers unable to sonic breath round #1, while cleaning everything up with area fire flamethrowers, auto fire rotolasers and line em up.

- 4) Weak Ancient Mirage Dragon (160 XP).
- Everyone has 5th rank See the Unseen spell chips because everyone is invisible from Cloaking Skin and they want to be able to heal each other with only a DC5 flat check in the event the worst happens. That makes this fight doable.
- Realistically this is a massive problem enemy without See the Unseen. It goes invisible with invisibility 4 and then Sneaks. It succeeds on a natural 2, and moves 90ft flying, you are never finding it.
- However it also lacks damage. Something very common with high level level+4 enemies. See the Unseen disables its sneak attack, so past the initial breath it can't do nearly enough damage (especially because it cannot get by Invisibility 4 itself) to threaten anyone.
- Party A wins with some lucky natural 1 saves on the Mirage's part, but would have won without it.
- Party B just wins through Readied Strikes, invisibility from cloaking skin and healing off any damage the Mirage can actually do. Despite bad initial saves vs the breath attack, the Mirage just can't output enough damage.

- 5) 4x Elite Armed Defrex and 1x Elite Ancient Horned Dragon (160XP)
- Party A kinda gets lucky (or rather, the enemies get unlucky). Yes, nothing here can bypass invisibility, but the enemies also win initiative this time due to a bad series of initiative rolls. Despite that, and despite the Defrexes critting on a 16+ on their MAP free attack, they get only 1 crit across the entire fight. Party A does take a beating, though, from the initial bad tempo.
- Party B has to do this twice, the first time the enemies get very lucky. The defrexes do not have darkvision, so Twisted Dark Zone makes them blind, but they roll a lot of crits through blindness and the Witchwarper eventually dies to this. Not helped by the Operative rolling quite poorly on their attacks, managing no stuns.
- On the second attempt, they roll good initiative, Opening Roar terrified Retreat the 4 defrexes and it's easy cleanup from there with Twisted Dark Zone blinding the defrexes.

- 6) 16x Stone Mauler (160XP)
- Probably not an encounter you should ever do.
- 16 Maulers doing Burrow, Strike, Burrow every round. Incredible gameplay. Of course, 13th-level SF2e characters have no ability to answer Burrow so they're stuck doing readied Strikes. The targets of which the Maulers have total control over.
- Party A doesn't manage to kill even a single mauler by the end of round 10, and wins by timer. Dermal Plating and Invisibility means the Mystic (The target of all 16 attacks, every round) never hits 0, but they did have to burn a few slots on Heal. Solarian just uses a Laser Rifle this combat.
- Party B has the advantage of the Ghost Operative's crit stun, meaning their readied Strike stuns a Mauler as it pops out of the ground, letting the rest of the party clean them up. They still win by timer as they can only kill 1 mauler a round, but there's only 6 maulers left. Witchwarper does not go down and does not need to spend many slots on Soothe (they do use all 4 of their FP on Warp Time though).
- Twisted Dark Zone does not prompt the confusion on entry, only on start of turn, so its useless here.

- 7) 3x Elite Immolsivix and 4x Elite Azlanti Dissident (160XP)
- If the Immolsivixes were not elite, this encounter would be over to Terrified Retreat on initiative.
- Still, it's a reasonably threatening enemy. Who knew all you had to do to make Area Fire worthwhile was... have it do literally more than double the damage that every other Area Fire does? Bomb barrage is basically that. Gets around invisibility too.
- The Dissidents are basically just here to Haste the Immolsivixes (it's an enemy with a good 3 action attack routine of Strike + Bomb Barrage, but it needs to move to do this consistently). Nerfs to the Seeker Rifle make them basically inadequate at dealing damage.
- Party A is lucky that they picked up spell gems of Energy Aegis as part of a reward from an earlier VP challenge, which severely cuts down on Bomb Barrage's damage. Despite that the Solarian still almost dies. This enemy is no joke.
- Party B... well, Immolsivixes have 25 speed, so Anchoring Impacts essentially locks them in place. Past there, the operative rolls a critical Line 'Em Up 3 rounds straight after Sneaking, keeping the Immolsivixes chain-stunned and unabl to do anything until they die. Party B did not take any damage past the first round.

- 8) 5x Elemental Hurricane and 2x Heliacal Maw Stellar Hulk (160XP)
- Party A gets 5 Terrified Retreats off on all 5 hurricanes on initiative. The Solarian is dead useless after the Stellar Hulks are down, they cannot catch the Hurricanes to deal damage to them, so they opt to simply switch to a Laser Rifle. Still, the Hurricanes can't really deal with invisibility so its mostly a painless win.
- Party B forces the Hurricanes to land under threat of the operative stunning them in midair (where they'd fall and take a bunch of fall damage at the end of their turn as they can't Arrest while stunned). From there, time loop stuns them to prevent Disperse, Line 'Em Up stuns some more. I'm fairly certain the opfor spent most of the encounter stunned. Pretty easy victory for them too.

Text for reference. Notably, not a free action, so it doesn't run into trigger issues.

At the start of a combat encounter, if you are aware of your foes and aren't attempting to Sneak or Hide, you can roll Intimidation for your initiative and can use the result to demoralize one foe within range.

Additionally, if you have the Battle Cry feat, you can Demoralize up to two creatures within 60 feet of you who you're aware of.

So my question is... how does this feat actually function if you have Battle Cry? Does it:

A) Let you demoralize up to two creatures within 60 feet, using your initiative result as the check result?

B) Let you demoralize one creature within range (30 or weapon range with Intimidating Shot) using your initiative result as the check result, then roll two more Intimidate checks with Battle Cry?

C) Let you demoralize one creature within range using your initiative result as the check result, then roll two more Intimidate checks, then use Battle Cry because you rolled initiative to demoralize one more creature (totalling 4).

D) Something else?

Same thing but level 3, pre a bunch of errata though

Been a while, fellow player wanted to wait for a bit of errata before continuing and we were doing some other stuff in the meantime, but we're back on track to do this, then level 13, level 16 and level 20 soon.

I'll start with the class feedback first and then the specific encounter stuff later.

Party A - Mystic, Envoy, Skirmisher Operative, Solarian

Party B - Action Hero soldier, Bombard soldier, Ghost operative, Witchwarper

--------------------------------------------------------------

Envoy

There is almost no significant difference in play pattern since level 3. Get 'em!, Strike, X (demoralize/second strike usually). Watch Out! and Look Alive! were really annoying to track, luckily we wrote down all the dice rolls for the dozens of times we forgot about it, so we could retroactively alter things. It's just so unlikely to actually do anything, and you need to use it pre-roll.

I don't really have much to say that I didn't say in the level 3 playtest.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Mystic

Basically played the same as it did in level 3, except this time it's a Rhythm mystic with New Epiphany for infusion. So it's transfer to sustain or activate Anthem, and infusion. They didn't do anything else, really, because they didn't need to do anything else, and that's despite all of these encounters being in the extreme range.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Operative

With Always Ready and Switch Target, you're basically playing with an unnerfed hair trigger. And yes, it's still busted even post nerf. Not really much else to say, with 1 or 2 weapon upgrades available at this level, it does crazy damage at range.

Ghost Operative was also played in addition to the more vanilla skirmisher operative (that was just skirmisher for the free hair trigger feat). Ghost Operative is... significantly jankier. It relied on the Witchwarper providing it invisibility, and even then it might be the most feast-or-famine class I've ever played. You successfully sneak (usually a coinflip), and then you crit, the encounter is trivial because stunned 1 round is massive. If you fail the sneak, you usually don't get a second attempt to do so, because if you fail again you can't free action aim and strike. If you miss the attack after your sneak, your sneak was pointless.

Also runs into stun-mid-turn issues as seen before, except this case because it's a stun 1 round that applies mid turn, its even worse. Stunned 1 you can just take an action off next turn, 1 round means either
1) They lose the rest of their turn, and it wears off at the start of the operative's turn by duration rules.
2) It does literally nothing and wears off at the start of the operative's turn by duration rules.

---------------------------------------------

Solarian

Basically just playing an inferior fighter/barbarian. It gets in people's faces with reach reactive strike, and that's good enough for starfinder where most ranged enemies simply can't do anything except take the reactive strike. Supernova didn't see much use at this level, Solarian had to move a lot.

--------------------------------------------------

Soldier

Add overwatch, the class is now top tier. Two variants of soldier were played, action hero and bombard. They basically played the exact same though. Both were Shirrens for Eager Assistant so they had a consistent use of their third action (aiding the ghost operative in this case). Action hero used Fog of War to some effect, whereas Bombard used covering fire, but they mostly both used Shot on the Run.

Suppressed is still very feast-or-famine as a mechanic as well. If you have a slow (20-30 speed), melee enemy it cripples them (worse, I imagine, with Anchoring Impacts). If you have a high speed enemy (pretty much a coinflip by this level or later) or a ranged enemy, they don't care.

----------------------------------------------------

Witchwarper

Aside from Quantum Field being a bad effect, I now present a second problem with Quantum Field: Action economy. This witchwarper was a Gap witchwarper, so they could use Forget on the ghost operative to give them invisibility. This meant they had to keep Quantum Field sustained every turn, which made them... extremely immobile, to say the least. They found it difficult to even use their spells with most spells being 30ft range, and not sustaining the quantum field, they couldn't Stride+Cast if they wanted to keep the field up.

Yes this was easily worse than just casting Invisibility 4 and as such I will just be using that, or advanced cloaking skin, at level 13.

I don't really see why they need to sustain the QF, its effects still aren't good enough to justify the action cost sustaining it. Why not just have it stick around no sustain, with Anchoring being to move it, and Quantum Transposition to move it further?

-------------------------------------------------------

Encounters
- 2x Protection-Class Security Robot and 2x Commander Eiran. The protection-class robots start with covering posture already used, Commander Eirans start already having taken cover and in a favourable position.(140XP)

Not very hard, overwatch/hair trigger/reactive strike wrecks them.

Witchwarper / Action Hero Soldier / Bombard Soldier / Ghost Operative party struggled a bit more than Mystic / Skirmisher Operative / Solarian / Envoy due to poor dice luck.

- 1x Elite Vampire Mastermind and 1x Elite Captain Vasoya (160XP).

Would only be hard due to the cheese factor of dominate. Mystic party just passed the save, soldier party suppressed the vampire making it unable to dominate anyone due to range/speed issues. Vasoya gets wrecked by suppress.

Amusingly the Solarian is still the worst at dealing with the vampire due to being hardstuck to a physical damage weapon, whereas everyone else gets elemental weapons.

- 4x Void Shark (160XP) in zero-G.

Probably the second hardest encounter here, due to the cheese factor of Swallow Whole + flying really far away. Soldier party was better here, mystic party suffered the most by having mystic constantly stuck swallowed, but ultimately the party won both times handily.

- 1x Asteray (160XP) inside a starship, starts with Matter Consumption already used (expires round 10).

Both parties come in prepared with cold iron weapons, reactions on movement (hair trigger + reactive strike or hair trigger + 2x overwatch) and darkness (asteray doesn't have darkvision). This is still not an easy fight, at all. The asteray is blazing fast, able to run around the starship to block line of sight while still getting off 2 ranged attacks. If it weren't for all those preparations, both parties would easily lose this.

This is another example of kiting, cover-based combat and... it's really just not fun, at all. You're just chasing some super fast enemy around a map, barely able to hit it.

- 3x Living Lodestone and 5x Elite Hatchling Swarm (135XP)

Not difficult. Enemies can't really do enough damage. Both parties get out of this with barely a scratch.

- 1x Corpse Fleet Screamer and 2x Elite Sample 62 (160XP)

Sample 62s get wrecked because of fire weakness (every single party member has either a laser rifle or a backup fire weapon such as a rotolaser or flamethrower for non-physical damage needs). Screamer takes a long time to take out, especially for the soldiers who do almost no damage to it. Fortunately, it does not do much in return, so this is mostly a grind fest.

- 1x Elite Famesworn (160XP)

Kinda scary but only because of Absorb. One person hits the floor and a single Stride instantly kills them (the famesworn is encouraged to do this). Unsurprisingly the Solarian party is at bigger risk here because the Solarian needs to close gap on it, whereas the other party can kite away from it (unusually poor dice luck meant that they couldn't suppress or slow it that well).

Still, no one died, and people only came close to dying due to threat of Absorb, not because of dying values.

- 2x Troll Bombard in a tiny room (160XP)

15ft burst grenades and autofire in a tiny room should be good for these dudes, right? Unfortunately, electricity weakness 10 and fire weakness 10 is a total death sentence, given how heavily incentivized PF2e and by extension, SF2e PCs are to stack elemental damage runes, everyone having shock modules with a fire damage weapon (laser rifle/rotolaser/flamethrower) meant that these dudes died like chumps.

Ghost operative crit twice in this fight rendering it even more trivial.

-----------------------------------------------

After now having run some combats for all the classes at level 3, I feel I can give some feedback regarding class balance and system mechanics

The parties

Party A - Mystic, Envoy, Operative, Radiant Solarian. This party was just choosing what the player thought were the best 4 classes at this level. Soldier damage is not very good due to lacking a second damage dice, and no flat mod.

Party B, using the classes not present in the first one. Here the aim was to create some sort of synergy between Black Hole, Area Fire and Quantum Field.

Party C, this time it's just 4 soldiers trying out all the different subclasses and seeing how bad Soldier's problems can get at low levels.

The encounters are:

Workday 1

- 1x Skeletal Giant and 4x Observer-Class Security Robot (Severe)
- VP Skill Challenge
- 1x Elite Elf Ranger, 3x Elf Ranger, 3x Ghost Courier (Severe, enemies need to be taken out nonlethally if possible)
- 12x Computer Glitch Gremlin (Severe)
- VP Skill Challenge
- 1x Elite Tashtari Alpha (Severe)

Workday 2

- 4x Umbral Echo (Severe)
- 3x Electrovore (90XP, Moderate)
- 5x Hardlight Scamp (100XP, Moderate)
- VP Skill Challenge
- Corpse Fleet Officer x1 and 5x Cybernetic Zombie (Severe)
- VP Skill Challenge

I'll put the detailed breakdown of classes at the end

---------------------------------------------------------

System Mechanics

I'll echo most of what Teridax said here regarding the ranged focus of the game, I do think a number of things will need to change relative to the base ranged combat rules of PF2e in order to make ranged combat really pop.

1) Cover rules. Currently PF2e's rules are essentially "The GM tells you if there's cover" and "If in doubt, draw center to center". For a game where cover is presumably a thing that shows up often in combat, this really needs better defined rules. The center-to-center cover rules are not great, as it means if you have cover from an enemy, the enemy also has cover from you, making it impossible to outflank an enemy in cover while maintaining cover yourself. I'm not sure why we aren't using corner-to-corner cover rules, which would make it possible to do this. SF1e, PF1e and 4e all use corner-to-corner cover which are much more functional for this purpose.

2) Damage. Ranged damage is incredibly swingy and rather weak at low levels due to the lack of striking rune - particularly level 1-3 is a pain point for the Soldier, Operative and Envoy who struggle to deal enough damage to kill enemies unless they're really low level ones (level -1 to 1). Anything higher level just takes far longer to die due to lack of flat mod. I think this needs a general rules change for half dex mod to ranged damage at least, just to patch up these early levels, and make it less swingy. Rolling a 1 or 2 on your weapon dice feels like you accomplished absolutely nothing if you hit, and happens far too often at these levels.

3) Positioning and cover. Currently anyone can shoot anyone from pretty much anywhere, cover is the only concern. The operative and soldier both have incredible mobility through feats (Mobile Aim, Shot on the Run) to let them get around cover easily, which makes Taking Cover against them kind of a waste. But this also creates a number of flow-on issues.
- Unless forced (such as Corpse Fleet Infantry), enemies have no reason to group up (they don't need to flank or whatever), which makes it so Area Weapons have a really difficult time hitting more than 1 person.
- Enemies often have a lack of reason to really move except to get by cover, and you can't incentivise them to move to any particular location because there's often a pretty wide variety of angles they can attack from to get by cover. Grenades are not threatening enough (for the action cost, never mind the credit cost) to get enemies to want to move, and neither is the Quantum Field.
- Compounding on that, many options that exist right now are anti-movement, such as Hair Trigger and Overwatch - massive range reactions triggered by moving - making the battlefield even more static.

4) Map design. Often what makes sense for these maps doesn't lead to good gameplay. Cover based shooters have needed to custom design their maps for ages to ensure gameplay there is good, and tabletops are no different. You need to think of sight lines, cover, and the like. Ensuring that the map is neither too open, nor too cramped, that no position ensures unfettered access to everywhere on the map, but at the same time that no position blocks off a majority of the map. Starfinder flip-mats currently don't do this, they tend to vary between wide open and having an excessive amount of rooms/walls that block line of sight.

5) Reloading. Tracking reload on enemies as a GM is a major headache when they have different usage rates, different clip sizes and might even have autofire adding even more confusion. The GM should not be asked to track the minutiae of 5-6 different enemies expend values, especially when it often isn't relevant because the enemies will die before ever running out of bullets. Likewise for SF guns, batteries and petrol end up at so many shots that you will never feasibly run out in combat. Many weapons already start at the point where you can fire continuously for 3 rounds straight, or more, before needing to reload. If this mechanic is going to be this ignorable, don't bother including expend at all except on weapons that have a very limited number of shots, simply assume that everyone has enough bullets for the entire combat.

Other sci-fi games, such as Lancer, have tried to force movement with objectives which generally works pretty well. I do have a feeling that Starfinder doesn't want to force an objective into every combat, though.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Soldier

Soldier damage at low levels is extremely luck dependent on your dice, and it struggles very much with resists. It doesn't get to combine PT damage with AF damage like e.g. Flurry of Blows or Double Slice does for the purpose of resist.

One of the two players also found it rather awkward due to being a bit stop-starty. Maybe its just because the VTT automation isn't there yet, but having both the soldier and GM roll every time they area fire + primary target feels clunky. IMO both sets of rolls should be on one side.

From all the subclasses, Bombard and Action Hero are easily the best. Bombard, however, works much better with many of Soldier's feats that rely on suppressed enemies (such as Overwatch or Warning Spray) because it suppresses much more frequently without spending additional actions to do so, so I'd rank it as #1, with action hero far below it at #2. Then the rest.

Close Quarters works reasonably well at low levels when the strength mod to damage is significant, and punitive strike disrupting movement on a hit is great. It does suffer from a number of issues such as not really having great ranged capability (for flying, ranged enemies which are common even at low levels) or flight available until jetpacks at level 5. It also doesn't scale particularly well if PF monsters are anything to go by, many of them will start outreaching your reach weapon, which significantly limits the efficacy of punitive strike. The biggest issue, by far, however is that Whirling Swipe is incompatible with pretty much every other Soldier feat due to being a distinct action. IMO, this should be given for free to Close Quarters, and should just be a free action start of turn trigger to add Area Burst and Unwieldy to your weapon.

Armor Storm seemed incredibly weak through play. Disarm, Trip, Grapple, etc. are just far less relevant when nearly every enemy is ranged. They don't need to move as much, so denying them the ability to move just doesn't matter. The resistance is too small at low levels to really matter and should have a flat bonus like 2+half level instead of just half level.

Erudite Warrior wasn't used but a distinct action to suppress 1 person seems quite bad. I like the "enemy loses suppressed if they attack you" and feel like this subclass could increase the penalty of suppress you apply for the downside of making them lose suppress if they attack you. Make it more of a "draw aggro" subclass.

-----------------------

Solarian

I'll preface this by saying in all of these combats, Nimbus Surge and Solar Shot were never relevant a single time. The Solarian does have Ultralight Wings specifically to deal with ranged, flying enemies. The only things that meleed the Solarion were the skeletons, which neither the push nor fire damage were relevant against.

This class contributes at low levels off the strength of two things:
- 1) Strength modifier to damage. It does about as much damage as a champion.
- 2) Supernova is very strong against level- enemies at these low levels, where that much fire damage + blind kills or severely injures them. The damage does not scale particularly well past level 8-9 or so, and will only hit lower level enemies for ~20-25% of their HP on average post-save.

That's pretty much it. The Graviton strike effect never mattered because the Solarian has no Reactive Strike innately, needs to spend a level 4 feat to get it. The whole switch between graviton/photon thing barely mattered because the effects are really just not that much different between graviton and photon.

Black Hole was significantly worse than Supernova. Prone + pull on fail is much worse than blind, and it does less damage. It can't consistently group up enemies and gets awkward if you're trying to use it to pull an enemy in to attack them (basically making having Reach on your Solar Weapon mandatory, and even then you risk a CS causing your plans to be foiled).

I won't speak to higher levels of Solarian until I see it played, but at low levels this class is very mediocre outside of combats where Supernova could nuke the entire thing.

-----------------------------------------------------

Operative

This class has all the tools in the world and still somehow ends up doing Weakening Shot + Strike every round. I don't think there was a single round of combat in which Hair Trigger didn't trigger, the trigger is far too broad at far too great a range, and nearly everything an enemy can do triggers it.

Couldn't be locked down with reactive strike from the officer, tactical reposition gets them out of it scot free (it's meant to do that)

Can easily get around cover with Mobile Aim (or just aim's cover-reducing bonus)

The only thing keeping this vaguely in line at these levels was the fact that ranged damage is bad, I suspect when I do the level 8 playtest and this is doing 2d10+4d6+3 instead of 1d10+1d4, it will prove to be significantly overpowered. At level 3 it is merely very strong.

---------------------------------------------------

Mystic

Easily an S tier class with healing connection (or just taking infusion on another connection with the feat). The party without the mystic had a much harder time than the one with the mystic solely due to the lack of massive heals that the mystic puts out practically resourcelessly. Comparisons of whether or not its better than heal font cleric, I think they're about equal or the Mystic is slightly ahead due to its much better burst healing capability with vitality network.

Can we get a consistent recharge rate on the network though? Why does it go from recharging in 2.5 rounds (level 1) to 10+ rounds (level 19). If the network scales up 4 per level, the recharge should scale up 1 per level.

Not really much else to say, its a spontaneous divine caster.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Witchwarper

In all the combats with the Witchwarper, Quantum Field + Warp Terrain did not matter a single time. It could have mattered against the Skeletal Giant, forcing them into Stride + Stride + Glaive Strike instead of Stride + Terrifying Charge, but a push from the Hydraulic Push on the security robots made it possible to do the charge anyway. The passive effect never mattered.

Core memories ability was never used, the assurance in medicine technically did something in allowing the witchwarper to stabilize without a check.

Really this class just felt like a spontaneous occult caster with 4 slots, light armor and 8hp per level at this level. The field doesn't do enough of anything for the enemies to meaningfully change their turn based on its existence, and using Warp Terrain to provide cover for allies proved rather awkward in practice.

Ultimately the Witchwarper just dropped sustaining their QF a good chunk of the time, and in more difficult combats used either Soul Surge or Force Barrage.

This might change at later levels when it gets better stuff going on with its QF, but this core feature should be relevant without high level feats.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Envoy

It really just suffers from having a very rote turn of Get 'Em, Strike, X. Get 'Em lasting only a single turn and being single-target until level 18 feels rather bad, it does feel like you're just using a worse version of inspire courage - a cantrip that comes stapled to a class that also has full casting.

Its damage isn't bad at low levels, d10+3 with a seeker rifle is the same as the Solarian's d8+4, and it also comes with a bonus for your party. Not stacking with off guard is a bit sad.

I think this class either
a) Needs more directives and directives should not be feats, rather given from a pool.
or
b) Needs to action compress its Acts of Leadership into directives, and do so from level 1.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Combats

Party A

Encounter 1 - Skeletal Giant x1, Observer Class Security Robot x4
Init - Envoy (31), Operative (28), Mystic (25), Robots (top left, bottom right, 23, 21), Solarian (19), rest of enemies (18 robot, 12 giant, 11 robot)
- Did the Solarion use any special abilities? No
- Very easy though, everyone has the ability to bypass skeleton resists (Solarian bludgeoning, envoy and operative have acid darts), robots go down fast and hair trigger crit stops a hydraulic push dead.

Encounter 2 - 1x Elite Elf Ranger, 3x Elf Ranger, 3x Ghost Courier
Init - Envoy (29), Solarian (HP Reroll, 19->27), Courier (Middle Bottom, 24), Elf Ranger (Both Bottom, 24, 22), Operative (20), Courier (Bottom Left), Elite Ranger (18), Ranger (Top right, 17), Mystic (14), Courier (Top, 9)
- Supernova nukes enemy side, we forgot this was supposed to be nonlethal. Reset.

Encounter 2 (try 2)
Init - Operative, Elite Elf Ranger (31), Elf Ranger (Top, 30), Ghost Courier (Middle Bottom, 25), Mystic (23), Solarian (18), Elf Ranger (Middle Bottom, 18), Envoy (HP Reroll 18->17), Rest of enemies (14 ranger, 11 9 couriers)
HPs used - Envoy, Solarian, Operative
- A really sloggy, but not difficult, encounter due to the quantity of cover and line of sight blockers on this map. The enemies constantly move between rooms, closing doors, etc. forcing the party to spend a bunch of actions chasing them around. The enemies can do this due to double shot and the couriers attacks past the first are pointless anyway.
- Mystic kinda gets close to going down but ultimately healing from Infusion and Transfer Vitality outpaces enemy damage
- Permanent resources used: None

Encounter 3 - 12x Computer Glitch Gremlin
Init - Solarion (HP Reroll 15->32), Mystic (27), Gremlin (6th from the right, 25), Operative (24), Gremlin (Rightmost, 22), Envoy (22), rest of gremlins (21, 21, 19, 19, 16, lower)
- What armor is metal for the purpose of Thunderstrike? We ruled Hardlight to be metal because of the projector, but its somewhat unclear. Especially for e.g. Skyfire which says it "often" has metal.
- The most threatening level-1 enemy is still a level-1 enemy, past their initial Thunderstrike barrage (of those that survived to take a turn) which... did about 25 damage to the mystic all we are left with is a very slow, very low range, very low damage enemy who is Hair Trigger fodder.
- Glitching doesn't seem to affect armor at all, so glitch aura did really nothing on the Operative or Envoy due to the Seeker Rifle being analog.

Encounter 4 - 1x Elite Tashtari Alpha
Init - Solarian (29), Mystic (26), Operative (25), Envoy (HP Reroll 14->22), Tashtari (20)
- Envoy dies, Mystic dies but Tashtari also dies
- Unlucky CF vs Solar Cry one shots envoy and from there its a cycle of getting back up and getting hit down, they can't afford to stay down due to persistent
- Mystic rolls an unlucky nat 1 recovery check with persistent on them
- Fight takes until round 6 to finish, Solarian and Operative just lack damage output on the Tashtari without appropriate striking runes.

Encounter 4 (Redo)
Init - Party (Mystic 33, Operative 31, Envoy 31, Solarian 24), Tashtari (17)
- Party rolls very well this time and Tashtari dies on round 2

Encounter 5 - 4x Umbral Echo
Init - Solarian (31), Envoy (29), Echo (Bottom-right, 22), Mystic (21), Operative (19), Other echoes (15, 14, 12)
- Pretty much as expected, everyone but the Solarian who has a Light spell on their Solar Weapon struggles to do real damage.
- Mystic highrolls a Soul Surge to one shot an echo, Solarian takes out 2, Operative and Envoy combined with a few crits manage to take out 1
- Echoes don't really do anything because they get mulched too fast

Encounter 6 - 3x Electrovore
Init - Mystic (29), Electrovore (top, 28), Solarian (26), Electrovore (Bottom, 23), Envoy (21), Operative (19), Electrovore (Middle, 15)
- High rolled supernova + bad fort save enemies = very easy encounter even though 1 of them rolled a natural 20, it wasn't enough
- Not very hard
- Limited use resources used: Fear

Encounter 7 - 5x Hardlight Scamp
Init - Mystic (33), Scamp (Top right, 24), Solarian (22), Scamp (Top middle, 21), Operative (20), Scamp (Bottom Right, 18), Envoy (18), Scamps (15, 8)
- Another encounter of level-2 enemies at this low level, another supernova clearing everything instantly and leaving what remains as a blinded mess
- Not very hard
- Probably warped by low level HP/damage scaling, i expect these issues will steadily get resolved as levels climb

Encounter 8 - 1x Corpse Fleet Officer, 4x Cybernetic Zombie
Init - Operative (32), Solarian (30), Zombie (top left, 23), Officer (23), Zombie (bottom left, 22), Mystic (22), Envoy (22), Zombie (Bottom right, 15), Zombie (Top right, 9. Top, 7.)
- Hero points: Operative, Mystic, Solarian, Envoy (assumed for a medicine check)
- Corpse fleet officer rolls pretty badly with not a single crit, but gets crit twice (2 nat 20s)
- Probably way easier than it should be due to 3 party members having arc rifles so they're able to mulch the zombies
- 2 corpse officers and zombies, an elite corpse officer and 4 zombies or 2 elite corpse officers would all be significantly harder combats (probably a loss)
Past the initial supernova, Solarian feels pretty bad
- Mystic may or may not die depending on the party's medicine rolls (no one is trained in medicine). Assuming someone is, Mystic lives.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Quad Soldier

Encounter 1 - 1x Skeletal Giant, 4x Observer-Class Security Robot
Init - Buster, Hotshot, Robot (Bottom-Left), Hammer, Robot (Top-Left), Skeletal Giant, Anvil, Other two robots
- Resources used Battle Medicine (on Hammer) x2: Anvil, Buster, Battle Medicine (On Anvil): Anvil, Buster
- Resist 5 fire, cold, electric and piercing is very hard for a low level soldier to do anything about, the only weapon that really gets by this is the Screamer which is advanced
- Fight ends round 8, first enemy dies round 5. Damage output is extremely low and the skeleton's resist 5 piercing means the soldiers do basically nothing to it without critting. One resorts to unarmed strikes to deal some measure of damage.
- Party wins

Encounter 2 - 1x Elite Elf Ranger, 3x Elf Ranger, 3x Ghost Courier
Init - All the enemies except the top courier, hotshot, top courier, rest of party
Battle Medicine (on Hotshot): Buster
- Hypernerves
- Soldiers definitely had an easier time with this than the other party and I think Shot on the Run was a big reason why
- Party wins round 3, pretty easily

Encounter 3 - 12x Computer Glitch Gremlin
Init - 2 Gremlins, Hotshot, Anvil, Gremlin, Buster, 7 Gremlins, Hammer, 2 Gremlins
- A salvo of thunderstrikes takes out Hotshot but these gremlins are still -1 creatures and thus have no real damage past that, and die easily to area fire
- Party wins round 4 or so, its a bit grindy but not difficult

Encounter 4 - 1x Elite Tashtari Alpha
Init - Tashtari, Party
- Soldier is unsuprisingly terrible against a single enemy with high reflex
- With very limited damage output on the party's side (and the Tashtari rolling 2 crits) opted to call it in the Tashtari's favour
- Probably not winnable without extreme luck

Encounter 5 - 4x Umbral Echo
Init - Echoes (all but top left), Buster, Echo (top left), rest of party
- Not really winnable, d10+0 vs resist 5 all and high reflex saves

Encounter 6 - 3x Electrovore
Init - Anvil, Hotshot, Electrovores (Middle + Top), Buster, Electrovore (Bottom), Hammer
- Not really loseable, only one character gets close to dropping, not a difficult encounter just takes a while due to low damage

Encounter 7 - 5x Hardlight Scamp
Init - Buster, Scamps (all but top left), Hammer, Hotshot, Scamp (top left), Anvil
- The damage on these enemies is awful so they're not actually threatening, that plus some bad attack rolls means that barely any damage is dealt
- Very easy

Encounter 8 - 1x Corpse Fleet Officer, 5x Cybernetic Zombie
Init - Hotshot, Hammer, Zombies (both right), Officer, Anvil, Buster, Other zombies
- Considering the struggles facing the Skeletal Giant before, it should come as no surprise that the Corpse Fleet Officer, a far more threatening enemy, is too difficult for the party to overcome
- With no electric or slashing damage, the zombies are way tougher than the observer robots

--------------------------------------------------------------

Party B

Encounter 1 - 1x Skeletal Giant, 4x Observer-Class Security Robot
Init - Same as Party A, replace envoy with soldier and mystic with witchwarper (-1 init)
- Hero points used Operative, Witchwarper, Soldier, Solarian
- Operative drops to 0 this combat
- Obviously way harder without the Mystic, also some very good luck with saves on the enemy side
- Witchwarper's field does absolutely nothing this combat and after the initial round won't do anything, so its just dropped. No this is not a case of "The Quantum Field is forcing the enemies to move out of the field", I would call that out if it was that. The enemies, if they are moving at all, already wanted to move and the field is not doing anything to impede that movement.
- Resources used: 1x Force Barrage

Encounter 2
Init - Same as party A, except the Soldier does not burn a hero point for init (they are less inconvenienced due to Warning Spray)
- No Take Em Alive this time so the party tries to switch between lethal and nonlethal, an accidental crit (->HP crit) made at a full health ranger causes them to die
- Witchwarper field does nothing, WW moves around opening doors for people
- Player plays better around the map this time, enemies' low damage makes this fight a non threat, but still takes almost 5 rounds to finish

Encounter 3
Init - Same party A
- Quantum field continues doing nothing
- Sad low roll blackhole
- Still a very easy encounter, these enemies have very low speed and range past their initial thunderstrike volley which leads to them being unable to meaningfully follow up
- Resources used: Force Barrage x2

Encounter 4
Init - Same party A try 1
- After an 8 round slog in which 2 party members (solarian and soldier) die, and Witchwarper gets very lucky to survive (passed their persistent check and all the death saves), the Operative wins barely at 6 hp and is also very lucky to survive (rolled 2 on 2d6 persistent at 8 hp, then passed the check)
- Tashtari is also fairly unlucky, not rolling a single crit until round 6
- This is one of the weaker level 6 monsters, the party simply cannot do enough damage
- Quantum field does nothing
- Resources used: Soul Surge x2

Encounter 4 (Redo)
Init - Same as party A try 2
- New strategy, Witchwarper just ignores everything that's new and spams Force Barrage instead
- Some luck on hits, but the WW adding +35 or so damage from 3 force barrages instead of +0 from missing Soul Surge twice makes a tangible impact on the tashtari's health
- Resources used: Force Barrage x3

Encounter 5
Init - Same party A
- Resources used: Soul Surge, Force Barrage
- Not very hard when 2 characters have Light, however Soldier who doesn't have Light is unable to do anything
- Quantum Field still does nothing

Encounter 6
Init - Same as party A
- Very easy, enemies can't really do that much damage
- Quantum field does nothing
- Blackhole was kind of useful for knocking the enemies out of the air, even though they both just Arrested to prevent taking fall damage

Encounter 7
Init - Same as party A
- Still a very non threatening encounter
- Party does get kinda lucky with 2 CFs vs Black Hole and a CF vs Frostbite, but it really wouldn't matter if these were only regular fails
- Enemies do too little damage to be threatening and have too little hp. Standard level 1 enemies used at level 3 issues.
- Quantum field obviously does nothing because everything died

Encounter 8
Init - Same as party A
- Stellar Rush says you choose the pull order but Black Hole doesn't, implying you can't choose the pull order (in which case, what would be the pull order?)
- Solarian dies
- Barely a victory with the zombies being a non threat after the officer died due to 2 arc rifles (the arc trait works well on these weakness 10 electricity enemies that want to be grouped for rotting aura stacking)
- Nimbus surge triggers... and does nothing because the captain has fire res 5

Encounter 8 try 2 (different strat)
Init - Same as party A
- This time the party tries to focus the zombies first with their arc rifles instead of the officer.
- Officer has some really bad luck this combat (misses ~half or more of his attacks when they hit on a 6, zero crits)
- Pretty sure if the officer's attack rolls were the same as the first iteration, this would be a much different story, I'm fairly certain this strategy is just worse on average.
- Operative goes down but survives

I think this feature needs to pop out a bit more, currently the baseline effects of it (without feats or focus spells doing something that enable it) are pretty mediocre, or may even not show up in combat. This is an issue at lower levels where it's often correct to just not sustain this thing - a core class feature - because its passive just isn't useful.

Fixing this comes down to asking "What is it actually intended to do in combat?". Personally, I think this is supposed to be some sort of no-go zone where enemies are disincentivized to stand in, whether the player wants to use that as an anti-cover tool, an anti-melee tool or a chokepoint creator is up to them. Therefore, I would suggest the following:

1) Add "At the start of your turn, each enemy within your quantum field takes 2+your level force damage". Keying this to the start of your turn means that enemies will always have a turn after you place or move the field to move out of it safely without taking the damage, and it also means it synergizes with Soldier through suppress and Degradant Solarian through forced movement. This provides enemies an interesting choice - stay/move into the field (maybe a good position that they want to be) and take damage, or spend actions moving somewhere else.

2) Allow the field to be moved a bit (10/15ft ish) whenever you Sustain it.

3) Make Quantum Transposition a 1st level class feature so you don't have to Dismiss the field to move it a large amount.

These don’t feel very useful right now, outside of the Infosphere Director + Automatic Knowledge trick. Your two main directives, Tactician and Get ‘Em, trigger off of Strike which as a character with martial proficiency is usually something you want to do once a turn at least.

Given Envoy’s rather stuck action economy at the moment (Get ‘Em, Strike, X) and given that Soldier/Operative have a lot of action compression for their main thing, I’d like to see these Acts of Leadership instead become action compression for their related actions.

Give all Envoys the following activity

Take Charge - 1a to 3a Flourish
You use a Directive that takes the same number of actions as Take Charge, and you use one of the actions listed in your Acts of Leadership. You may perform these two actions in either order.

And remove the automatic LBE from acts of Leadership.

This would add some much needed action flexibility to the envoy, allowing them to take their leadership style actions more frequently (and a good buff to the melee envoy who currently struggles to do their thing) while also doing their main Get ‘Em + Strike thing.

Some of the existing Acts of Leadership would probably need to change with this.

I have seen this class played from level 1 to 5 in the field test, and the release version is not too much different at this levels, take anything 6+ with a grain of salt.

CLASS FEATURES

4 slot, light armor, 8 HP a level caster. Already a good start.

TRANSFER VITALITY
- Still not sure why the recharge on this in combat is so utterly glacial past the early levels, why does it start at 4/round and barely scale past there? Could we not add some +level or +1/2 level scaling to this so it keeps a roughly consistent recharge rate, instead of starting out recharging in 2.5 rounds and going up to taking 10.75 rounds to recharge if you legendary your skill?
- Otherwise fine, essentially a ranged lay on hands 1/combat, its fairly good.

CONNECTIONS
- This is sort of where things start to break apart for me with regard to mystic. There really isn't a clear design idea on whether the mystic's focus spells are supposed to be supplementary (i.e. they replace an actual spell cast) or complimentary (cast in addition to a spell). PC2 rejigged a lot of level 1 focus spells so that they were combat useful for the class they were printed on, and I think this was a good change because focus spells are supposed to
- 1) Make up for the lack of slots at low levels so you don't feel like you're spamming cantrips.
- 2) As an encounter-refresh resource, they're supposed to be used on a per-encounter basis.
- Mystic's focus 1 spells are currently stuck between supplementary (Infusion, Shadow Snap), Complimentary (Anthem), basically combat useless (Akashic Fount) and questionable as to why it exists (Elemental Weapon).
- Infusion is probably the strongest of these because Heal is already a spell people cast, and an effective max rank-1 heal as a focus spell is extremely powerful.
- Elemental Weapon is questionable, its effectively a weapon that loses an upgrade slot for +1d4 damage, which is good early before you can get +1d6 upgrades and then you just never use this again. But it has another problem - why is it a 10 minute duration instead of an "until used again or next daily prep", you just have to keep stop-starting if you want this to start combat with, because spending 3 actions to manifest it in combat is awful.

By advanced focus spells, everyone can take a feat to have Infusion available to them.
- Akashic Assistant is unclear as to what it aids on (is it anything? Only skill checks? Only occultism checks?) and what rank the assistant has (I presume equal to your rank). If it can aid attacks, this is combat useful, otherwise its yet another non combat focus spell for Akashic.
- Cloying Shadows is an okay blast focus spell with a condition for less damage.
- Elemental Barrier is an okay defensive focus spell I guess.
- Shuffle Repeat being sustained means that Rhythm is going to start having problems casting spells if it has 2 of its focus spells up. It also kind of feels a bit weak compared to Anthem.
- Vitality Nova just seems like a worse version of Infusion, you have to lose points from your Transfer Pool to even cast this, and the rate is fairly mediocre. Feels like I'd rather just 2a Infusion -> 1a Transfer vitality.

- Data Drain is where Akashic finally gets a damage spell... a pretty bad single target blast, being 2 levels behind on damage and without that much upside to compensate.
- Elemental Nova is another okay blast focus spell.
- Shadow Prison is like Paralyze as a focus spell, it's okay but no multitarget means its pretty meh for a Focus 6.
- Remix weirdly starts out at 1 creature and goes to 6 2 levels later. It's effectively sustained Haste as a focus spell... except without the ability to Strike.
- Vital Rebirth is effectively Breath of Life as a focus spell with a transfer vitality cost, it's okay because its free but i'd probably never take it if it cost me anything.

HARMONY
- I get the point of these is supposed to be so you don't feel like dumping your entire Transfer Vitality load in one go, but none of them are strong enough to really justify spreading it out like that.

-----------------------------------------------------

FEATS

Just going to point out ones that are strong or weak

- Deity's Domain is more FP which means more infusions, and it can actually get a good focus spell too. The other focus spell granting feats are the same except they don't give great focus spells.
- Spot Healing's adjacent only requirement is rather awkward.
- Mental Inference requires using your Connection Skill, which for Healing and Elemental Mystics is great because their connection skill is Wis based. For everyone else its likely on a tertiary stat and will be far worse.
- Network shield is a solid defensive reaction.
- Convert Lifeforce doesn't feel like it should cost 1 action considering its an inefficient trade anyway.
- Overclock Spell is pretty fun.

This is a class that I have had some experience with in the field tests and not much has changed in the lower levels since then, take anything 5+ with a grain of salt.

CLASS FEATURES

GET 'EM
- Similar to the FT, the issues with this is that it lasts only 1 turn, is single target and is a circumstance penalty so it doesn't stack with off-guard.
- A lot of the envoy's turns are Get 'Em, Strike, X. The class certainly needs to be Striking as it is a martial chassis and should be making at least 1 strike to meaningfully contribute to combat. This means it can be hard to use the 30ft range charisma skill actions, e.g. unless you already started in a position to do so. IMO there should be some action compression for Get Em/directives, perhaps related to your Leadership style. Currently the leadership style benefit of using another action to Lead By Example aren't particularly worthwhile on the 3 class feature directives as two of them can trigger Lead By Example by Striking.
- The +1/2 cha to self damage makes up for the lack of damage ranged weapons do at level 1-3.
- The single target nature means that if the target dies, unlike a Bard whose benefits will just continue to other targets because it buffs the allies, the Envoy's benefit just ends until their next turn. It isn't a significantly better benefit than Courageous Anthem, and the bard is a full caster otherwise, I'm not sure why get em feels so bad relatively.
- As it stands you don't get any method to improve the action economy of this until level 16 with Extend Directive, and you don't get to deal with the single target nature of it until level 18.

LEADERSHIP STYLES
- I mentioned in Get 'Em that these mostly don't do much, there is actually a couple of exceptions though
- Guns Blazing gives you improved initiative as a bonus feat, that's okay.
- Infosphere Director is probably the best one at level 6+, because you can take Automatic Knowledge to recall knowledge as a free action once per round, which lets you Lead by Example on a directive, meaning you have much freer action economy to do whatever you want with directives than any other leadership style. It doesn't really matter what you roll on the knowledge check, just that you used the action.

OTHER STUFF
- Mostly a charisma based skill character

TACTICIAN
- Defender feels like the worst one by far because its the only one you don't have any control over, and given you need to choose this at the start of the day you can't opportunistically decide to give someone the defender role.

-------------------------------

FEATS

Just going to point out the ones that are too good or too weak

- Watch Out! being circumstance and therefore not stacking with cover is kind of awkward.
- Danger Sense is probably one of its best feats, giving 2 characters effectively advantage on initiative.
- Why does Hang In There have a 1 day lockout instead of a 10 minute lockout?
- That'll Show Em! Is one of the freest reaction attack triggers ever, even freer than Hair Trigger, at least its level 12. Also can get ridiculous with Hypernerve stacking.
- Know Your Target feels like a level 2 feat, why is it level 16?
- Extend Directive feels mandatory.
- So does Get Them.

Haven't played the class yet so take this with a grain of salt

CLASS FEATURES

Being a 4-slot, light armor, 8 HP caster I wasn't really expecting too much here, and what we get is not too much

SAVE PROGRESSION

- Still don't understand why wizard, sorc, witch and now witchwarper have such awful save progression not getting a single master save until level 17.

QUANTUM FIELD

- Looking at this I'm already not a huge fan, many abilities that require this field are in of themselves actions, and this field cannot be moved without a specific action, so if the enemies walk out of it you have to choose between moving it or casting a spell.
- I would really appreciate if this could move a little bit whenever it was sustained so it wasn't that easy for enemies to get out of.
- Until you get to level 19 and it becomes such a comically absurd radius that this isn't a problem anymore.

PARADOXES
- Here's where things get ugly, starting at level 1 the Witchwarper's Quantum Field really doesn't feel like it does all that much. The passive effects of each of the 4 subclasses feel very anemic in terms of benefit given you are spending an action to put the field down in the first place.
- On top of that, unlike the mystic which has supplementary initial focus spells (i.e. 2 action spells that replace the use of a normal spell), the witchwarper has complimentary focus spells, 1 action or reaction spells that are weaker because they can be used in addition to a levelled spell. This poses a problem for reasons:
- 1) Because most of them rely on Quantum Field, and Quantum Field takes an action to place down in the first place, the 1 action ones are actually hard to use without giving up a spell cast.
- 2) It means that your longevity is not very good at low levels before you start having to use cantrips every turn, and your Quantum Field might as well not do anything without your focus spells.
- The most useful of the initial focus spells is probably Warp Time simply because 10 THP is a lot at level 1, and it doesn't actually require the Quantum Field down to work. Yes it scales rather poorly past there (why its +2 for only 5 THP is a mystery), but its undeniably very strong for the action at low levels. By the point you hit level 7, you'll have your Focus 4s and can stop using this.
-

- The advanced focus spells are a bit better - all of them are pretty good except for Accelerate, which is a bit of a headscratcher to have on a caster. Casters usually don't want to cast Haste on themselves, and this is essentially Haste as a focus spell, that can only be self-targetted.
- Forget is something like invisibility 4 with a QF restriction, though unless you Sneak enemies won't have to Seek for you by the invisibility rules (you start hidden rather than undetected if you become invisible while observed), and I don't understand why enemies are even Recalling Knowledge about PCs, so the extra benefit seems a bit questionable.
- Alternate Outcome is a pretty good complimentary spell for your spellcasting.
- World Warp is just a basic blast spell but its fine as a supplementary spell.

- The greater focus spells are a bit of a headscratcher
- Quantum Analysis is essentially just True Strike that you can sustain for the least relevant parts of True Strike
- Parallel Forms, while cool, just isn't very good especially for a 2 action upfront cost and sustain.
- Reality Wipe is okay, adding a dispel magic to a blast, though its weird that the damage doesn't scale with the focus spell's level at all. Given this subclass also has Forget, having a situational focus spell as the Greater one is fine (though it should have +1 for +2d6 damage).
- Time Loop is probably the best one here, incapacitation stings a little but its something like a Paralyze 7 as a focus spell - in combats with single large enemies you can rely on Warp Time instead.

----------------------------------------------------------

FEATS

Just going to point out ones that are too weak or too strong

- Anchoring Strike I really do not like the Anchoring trait only being added on hit. Can this just be a Strike with the Anchoring trait? The Witchwarper's strikes are already not going to be amazing.
- Quantum Pulse is probably a mandatory feat so you can get your QF stuff going from round 1 while being able to cast.
- Predictive Positioning is kind of a neat defensive feat.
- Radiant Zone starts the train of "things hard to use", yes if you put down your field and the enemies stay in there + don't die, you can do this and cast a spell. Without Quantum Pulse it's a lot harder to use this. Also this becomes a lot worse when your Quantum Field becomes 100ft radius as its creatures, not enemies. The effect is kind of good though considering no immunity.
- Quantum Transposition... finally lets you move your Quantum Field, at level 6, rather than having to Dismiss it or let it drop from not sustaining, then put it back up.
- Butterfly effect is neat
- Twisted Dark Zone is very good, quite weird that it requires a check against your class DC rather than spell DC, the only difference between the two is that class DC doesn't become legendary at level 19.
- Reality's Anchor doesn't stack right?
- Complete Transposition is a very cool feat that I wish was earlier level, this kind of forced movement effect is great team support. Also weird that its class DC again.

I have actually done some testing with the soldier, but only with the field test version up to level 5. Anything past there can be taken with a grain of salt.

CLASS FEATURES

Fighting Styles
- Action Hero looks like it should be decent with something like the Machine Gun or Magnetar Rifle that has a good ranged increment + automatic. Automatic fire has a few rules issues as current (can you use it if you don't have bullets = 2x the number of targets? what happens then?) that makes me a bit hesitant to actually say anything further on this.
- Cannot see myself taking Armor Storm
- Bombard still looks like a clear winner, applying Suppress on a successful save matters a lot for Overwatch, and just in general for getting your statuses down. Actually buffed since the FT now allies can just ignore your area fire rather than getting a +2, which makes it a lot better if enemies move into flank your ally.
- Close-Quarters feels like Whirling Swipe should be built into it.
- Erudite Warrior seems to be the weakest of the bunch, there's no upgrades for Oppressive Presence and one action to suppress one target doesn't feel great. I do like that the suppress is conditional on them not attacking you, but I feel like the penalty could afford to be a bit bigger for this. Something like "increase the circumstance penalty to -2 when you apply Suppressed, but when an enemy you Suppressed targets you with a strike or other offensive action they lose the Suppressed condition".

There really isn't much else to say on it that I haven't said before. Suppressed does have a feat to scale its speed penalty up now.

---------------------------------------------------

FEATS

Just going to point out feats that are too good or too weak

- Overwatch / Soldier's Training is like a less busted version of Hair Trigger because it only applies to Suppressed targets, but make no mistake being able to (mostly) reactive strike against anyone within your first ranged increment is still incredibly busted. It doesn't trigger on Manipulates so its not as good vs casters, but it still triggers on movement and ranged attacks.
- Run Hot, by the Duration rules actually has the lockout expire at the start of your turn rather than at the end. Which means it would only lock you out of using Overwatch. Of course, this reading leads to some absurd damage output and it could probably stand to be clarified on how long its supposed to lock up your weapon for.
- Death Blossom while funny is probably significantly worse than the prerequisite feat, Run Hot, due to no primary target.
- Fanning the Hammer is basically more damage: the feat. It's in fact most of Run Hot as the second attack of Run Hot is not that good with your non key dex and MAP. So basically its Run Hot without the funky rulings, that also doesn't lock you out of Overwatch.

Haven't playtested this class yet so take it with a grain of salt

CLASS FEATURES

Solar Flare
- There's so many issues with this ability
- In principle I agree the Solarian, otherwise a melee-focused class, should have an inbuilt ranged attack in case of flying creatures, burrowing creatures, whatever.
- However, Solar Flare is pretty awful at this.
- First of all, it uses an off-stat. We fixed this for Kineticist no longer needing to use Dex for their elemental blast, seeing as this is essentially Solarian's Elemental Blast I don't see why it can't just use Strength to hit.
- Second, the range is terrible. 15ft or 30ft. If this is supposed to be a ranged option, that is pretty low - this may be because it does have +str to damage, but its very close to melee at this range (particularly 15ft, its almost within reach of your reach weapon).
- Third, and most critically, it doesn't scale at all with items, which means not only does the hit bonus suffer due to no item bonus to hit, but it also can't get elemental runes to damage (something shared with the Solar Weapon) putting it even further behind in terms of damage. The autoscaling only makes up partially for this loss, getting an extra dice over striking.
- Fourth, it's not a Solar Weapon so it doesn't become legendary at level 19 (unclear why Solarian has this).

Nimbus Surge
- Hit by melee attack only in this ranged focus game?
- Graviton ability is pretty bad, if the creature has reach or a ranged attack it might just not do anything. Photon is mildly better but it starts out extremely weak (1 or 2 damage at level 1-4), because of no flat bonus. Even something like a 2+half level would help out a lot here.

Solar Weapon
- The biggest issue with this weapon is the fact that it uses Solarian Gems, which is an entirely different subsystem to weapons and upgrades, to scale it.
- I don't see why we are doing this. Why not just have a handwraps of mighty blows equivalent that scales your Solar Shot and Solar Weapon that you can fit out with normal upgrades?
- Because it uses Solarian Gems, and because the gems are worse than normal upgrades, the Solarian is behind in damage. A normal weapon user can have Frost, Flaming, Shock, Loudener on their weapon for +4d6 damage. A Solarian gets 3 gems, the Photon and Graviton ones provide damage but are mutually exclusive so if they slot both they only get +1d6 damage. The persistent bleed one is worse than normal damage due to not stacking, and its also a d4. That means they're between 7 and 10.5 damage behind other characters before considering class feature difference.
- In terms of attunement bonus, Graviton looks to be to set up a Reactive Strike as they can't Step out of your reach now... but you don't get Reactive Strike until level 4, with a feat. So it's not very useful unless you pick that feat.
- Photon attunement has the same issues as Nimbus Shield, no flat bonus means it starts out very weak, and because of the aforementioned Solarian Gems issue you're only equaling a normal unboosted martial's attack (such as Champion or Monk) while in Photon state, not exceeding them to get to Barbarian/Fighter levels.

Weapon & DC Proficiency Progression
- For some bizarre reason, Solarian becomes legendary in its Solar Weapon at level 19.
- Yet, despite that, and despite the fact that it uses Class DC for a number of things, its class DC proficiency progression is the worst we've ever seen.

Save DC
- For some reason, Solarian's Master Will feature is only on successful saves vs mental or incapacitation, rather than all will saves. I'm not sure why.

Solarian Arrangements
- Balanced is pretty bad. Binaric Assault actually does worse damage than just Striking with your weapon twice for a number of levels due to Solar Shot's bad attack bonus, and is barely better than doing so for other levels. Ascended Stability only interacts with 4 feats, all of which aren't very good because they rely on Solar Shot, or in the case of Twin Parry, can't actually be used with Ascended Stability.
- For some reason, at level 1 specifically, Black Hole is just strictly better than Supernova. Defy Gravity is really weird considering flight is available much earlier (by Jetpack or Ultralight Wings) and you don't want flight that can suddenly turn off if you end up using a cycle action. The level 15 abilities both do worse damage than Supernova, despite being 3 actions and Disharmony.

------------------------------------

FEATS

I'm just going to call out the ones that are too strong or too weak

- Solar Shield is very strange, it has no Hardness unless on Graviton. This means that for Photon, the fact that the shield's HP scales is actually detrimental for you and especially if you pick up the Stellar Shield Collapse feat you don't want this shield to have HP.
- Eclipse Strike is actually kinda okay for just being a Strike with Cycle on it.
- All 4 Disharmony feats are pretty bad - Shattering Impact provides too little value for the 2a action cost and 1a to remanifest. Solar Barrage and Unstable Flare both key off Solar Shot which by the point you get these feats will have accuracy and damage issues. Twin Parry for some reason only works on crits.
- Plasma Ejection is probably a decent feat, but the graviton side is way better. Eclipse Strike (Photon) -> Plasma Ejection (Graviton) is a thing I could see being a mainstay for Solarians right now.
- Constellation Vortex might be misprinted. The vortex does damage equal to the weapon damage not weapon damage dice of your Solar Weapon. Why would you ever spend more actions to add 1 damage when it's already starting at 2d8+X? The feat itself seems quite good if its supposed to do weapon damage and not weapon damage dice.
- Flicker Strike should really not be contingent on hitting, same with Momentum.

Haven't done any playtesting yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but here is my impressions on the operative from my initial readthrough.

CLASS FEATURES

Aim
- I'm a fan of this being compressed into nearly all their feats, I do not want for the operative's turns to be Aim, Strike, Strike a lot of the time. Having them be able to use 2 actions to do their damage, and have 1 action spare, is a lot better in my opinion.
- Aim currently patches up the Operative's otherwise terrible damage from level 1-3 (ranged weapon no stat mod), however as you level up the Operative effectively has 2 damage boosters - Sneak Attack and Fighter's increased proficiency. Effectively they lose the +4-7 from strength to gain +1-5d4 (+1-5d6 with a feat).
- For reference operative damage compared to soldier and a melee fighter. For all three characters we assume the biggest weapon, and maxxed out energy runes (for the operative and soldier this means Frost, Flaming, Shock, Loudener and for the fighter this means Flaming, Frost, whatever)

Mobile Reload
- This not being an actual action like Running Reload means it combines with all the actual actions that reload stuff. Running Reload isn't in SF2e (yet) so you can't get a double stride off running reload, but it does currently combo with Instant Reload to let you Stride or Step as a free action (once per turn).

Operative Specializations
- Infiltrator can be quite hard to use. I don't understand why the initial exploit requires the target be unaware of you, rather than you simply being undetected by them so it would work with Sneak. Ghost Tap is a bit better, but has no Aim compression built in so it is a bit awkward to actually use. Aim + Ghost Tap means you already need to be behind cover or invisible.
- Saboteur only works against tech creatures and items. I'm not sure what % of monsters in the final product this will apply to, but it feels kinda bad to have your entire subclass turn off if the monsters don't shake out right.
- Skirmisher gains Hair Trigger, one of the Operative's best feats, as a bonus feat at level 1. IMO the enhanced exploit is rather mediocre, but for level 1-8 this is likely the best subclass.
- Sniper is rather unclear what it works with. What is a "Sniper Rifle"? Is it a weapon with the Sniper weapon group? Meaning just the Assassin Rifle and Shirren-Eye Rifle? Or does the Seeker Rifle apply because the description refers to it as a Sniper? If it's the first, this is rather bad from an action economy perspective - these single shot rifles really don't work well with Hair Trigger or Kill Steal from an action economy perspective, so it can be hard to use them. The enhanced exploit is a bit strange as well, considering you need to Aim, Strike, Reload, Strike which only seems to work with Always Ready or Instant Aim?
- Striker isn't as bad as it looks at first glance. Most of the best weapons for Operative are simple weapons - the martial guns are mostly automatics and area weapons with bad range. The Seeker Rifle is a clear winner if its not a misprint, and if it is the Laser Rifle and Acid Dart Projector aren't that far behind. Yes, the 1st level feature is not very good, but the 9th level feature does work with ranged attacks and isn't once per turn, so I think at level 9 this is probably better than Skirmisher.

Tactical Advance (and upgrades)
- Neat I guess, unsure how common Reactive Strike and similar reactions will be in SF but its nice to have.

Critical Aim
- The Seeker Rifle happens to be a Projectile weapon which is probably one of the best critical specializations there is (save vs slowed 1). The only better one is Shock but you don't want to use a Slinging Coil.

Tactical Barrage
- To add to the absurdity of damage boosters this class has, we also now get Flurry Edge on top of fighter accuracy and sneak attack.

--------------------------------------------------------------

FEATS

Mostly going to point out the ones that are unclear or way too good.

- Double Tap / Burst Fire - It's kind of unclear if Burst Fire is supposed to mean both the initial attacks have No MAP. Given similar wording on Gunslinger's [url=https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3177]Bullet Split[/b] I would assume yes (otherwise Bullet Split would be awful) but it might just make the next attack at 1 less MAP and the first 2 attacks are resolved as normal. Also can be combined with Follow-Up Fire if you went with 2 1 handers.
- Hair Trigger - This may actually be one of the most absurd reactions ever printed. Reactive Strike on anyone within your weapon's first ranged increment is basically a guaranteed reaction attack, which means you're getting another MAP free strike every round. Gets better when you consider Hypernerves. There appears to be no rule against stacking the same augmentation multiple times, so an operative can have up to 7 (1+5 con+1 augmented body) Hypernerves (8 if Human) meaning they can ignore their reaction limit (up to) 21 times per day to make ANOTHER MAP free strike. Also gets absurd with Combat Reflexes, but that's level 20.
- Devastating Aim - I don't know why this feat exists. I thought we were past having feats that just give a straight numerical improvement to your main class feature?
- Impeding Shot - It's a strictly better Debilitating Shot from fighter
- Fish in a Barrel - 2 actions for a guaranteed crit on hit with aim compression, if it wasn't competing with Burst Fire this would probably be nutty.
- Follow-Up Fire - Free action? The PF version of this costs 1 action, I guess there's no doubling rings in starfinder so having 2 up to date guns is probably really expensive?
- Instant Reload - As mentioned before, free stride or step.
- Infinite Aim - Considering the amount of Aim compression you get, you really don't need this.

----------------------------------

Also the art on page 96 is top tier, other classes suffer from not having art as cool : (

Just finished doing 26 combats with a two parties of four. As we don't have a fourth SF class from Field Tests yet, player opted to take a PF2e class for the 4th.

They initially wanted to do a polearm fighter, I said they could do that, but they should also do it with a ranged class because Reactive Strike is not on the Soldier (they notably have a weaker version) and because of Starfinder's ranged focus.

So the parties were

Level 1 - Envoy (Guns Blazing), Soldier (Bombard), Mystic (Healing), Ranger (Precision, Ranged) or Fighter (Polearm, Melee)

Level 5 - Envoy (Guns Blazing), Soldier (Bombard), Mystic (Healing), Fighter (Gun, ranger AT) or Fighter (Polearm, melee)

Full builds can be found here Level 1,Level 5

The combats were split into workdays of 4 encounters each for both parties (1 at level 1, 2 at level 5), we had only 1 encounter that we needed to redo (which we did once for both) hence the 26 rather than 24 encounters.

I'll just open with the closing thoughts on the two classes as the rest of this post will be detailing the builds, combats and efficacy of each class in each combat.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Enemies & Ranged Focus

This is a preface to the classes that I think is essential to understand. At low levels, ranged damage is pretty bad in Pathfinder 2e's paradigm. With no actual changes to this, this remains true for Starfinder 2e as well. Melees do more than double the damage due to having their +4 stat mod, while this is partially rectified at level 4 with striking weapons and more rectified at level 8 with weapon spec + elemental runes, it is still a massive issue at low levels.

Many of the enemies appear to be built like PCs and as such do a single dice of damage with no bonus (See: Aeon Guard, Corpse Fleet Infantry). Not only is their damage far below the expected for their level (both are beneath Low, even with the suppressed damage bonus on the Aeon Guard), which makes them extremely non-threatening, it also leads to a pillow fight where both sides actually struggle to do any damage to each other unless they roll well on both attack and damage.

It's possible that these enemies are intentionally low damage because SF PCs are intentionally low damage, but that simply means that anyone with an actual damage bonus they can apply (str melee, precision edge, etc.) is the only threatening PC.

In addition to that, many of these guns have extremely low range - usually just within a stride or two for the first ranged increment. They're worse, in many regards, than a bow - losing out in both range and damage, while needing to reload. This means that melee characters don't really struggle to "close the distance" to get their far more effective attacks off, and starting combats at 200+ft away is somewhat unviable because everyone will have massive ranged increment penalties.

As a final note, with so many enemies having fire damage laser attacks, the value of fire resistance is extremely high. In the level 5 playtest, the entire party had Nephilim Resistance (fire) which essentially nullified the damage output of the laser enemies. This might just be because we have such a limited preview of enemies, and the full set has more variance in damage types for ranged attacks, but if 50% of ranged enemies are going to be using lasers (and therefore fire) this will be an issue.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Guns

I have a number of issues with guns as presented
- 1) Enemies use them, if I have a lot of enemies especially with automatic or area fire I have to track the bullets for each enemy separately. That's a lot of hassle.
- 2) Most feel like their range is too low for a ranged focused game.
- 3) I feel like the formatting for automatic and area fire could be more succinctly worded as just a single "Area fire" trait that includes a template, e.g. Area Fire (30ft cone). The current version of half range increment seems to strangle the range on the automatic weapons because otherwise they'd get a massive cone. This would allow having an automatic rifle with 100ft increment, but only a 20ft cone. If it's a burst you can put it in the first ranged increment.
- 4) Usage scaling. Don't really understand why capacity and usage both go up with level such that you always end up with the same number of shots. Initially I thought usage was only if you did Area Fire, but on rereading that's not it. Seems to just add extra complexity for no real gain.
- 5) Using the Pathfinder 2e paradigm of no stat to damage makes them really low damage compared to average enemy HP at low levels.
- 6) Enemies are missing a DC for automatic fire.

For this game we assumed there was ballistic versions of the laser rifles available, with slightly lower range in return for concussive.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Soldier

This might be just due to the limited scope of the field test, but I feel the Soldier has a very stuck routine. Every single turn was Area Fire, they never really had a reason to do anything else. Third action was Demoralize, Reload or (when they got it) Dread Marshal. Couldn't Strike due to unwieldy.

Having a 2 action routine is not great in this game because it means ducking behind cover and Taking Cover just becomes something that you can't really do because your main damage output is locked behind spending 2 actions every turn.

It's really hard to hit more than 1 enemy with area fire in this game, because many enemies are ranged there's almost no reason for them to stand that close to each other unless forced to (Corpse Fleet Infantry). This is different from a melee focused game, where enemies may group up to hit one person in melee.

Bombard seems far and away the best subclass due to inflicting suppress on success, and Warning Shot only seems to work with Bombard. The DC reduction on allies was relevant only once in these 26 combats, because the soldier only splashed an ally once.

Suppressed only worked if the enemies were 25 speed, and needed to get in melee (Nihilis due to aforementioned fire resistance, Bastorox). If they had more speed, such as the 45 speed glass serpent or crest-eaters, the speed penalty didn't matter. Especially because of the soldier's limit to rather low range weapons, any speed of 40 or greater will close the distance even while suppressed.

In my opinion, Suppressed should scale because enemies get more speed as you get higher in CRs - maybe halving speed.

Basically I just want it to have more interesting things to do on its turn, and for suppressed to scale properly.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Envoy

Similar issue to Soldier, unlike Thaumaturge or Ranger you have to use Get Em every turn, which leaves little room for anything else. Want to demoralize? Have to hope the enemy is already in 30ft of you, otherwise you can't really because Get Em + Strike takes up 2 actions. Similarly striding to cover and taking cover is also not an option.

Get Em should really be either compressed with another action, or last longer than a single turn.

The half-cha to self damage somewhat helps with their low level damage, but doesn't scale very well at all past there. It's occupying some halfway between support and striker, but feel way less effective at it than it should be.

Easily the least powerful member of the party.

----------------------------------------------------------

Mystic

This class is easily S tier right next to heal font cleric. Vitalize and Transfer Vitality allow resourceless, large bursts of healing that can just go on all day. With the remaster focus changes, having 2-3FP per combat to spend on vitalize is already incredibly strong. Its bard/cleric-like chassis with wis KAS makes it quite durable.

The Mystic in these playtests barely even touched their spell slots, Vitalize and Transfer Vitality were pretty much enough for them to have a significant contribution on every combat.

Primal mystic's focus spell is significantly worse, and I wish they got more ways to use their vitality pool that competed with just dumping it all for a 1a big heal.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Encounters @ Level 1 (Melee Party)

Encounter 1 - 1x Cybernetic Zombie, 2x Corpse Fleet Infantry (Severe)
Init - Fighter, Mystic, Envoy, Cyber Zombie, Corpse Fleet (Left), Soldier, Corpse Fleet (Right)
- Fighter crits a corpse fleet which kills it, enemies really struggle to do enough damage in return. Level 1 melee vs ranged things. Slashing weakness on both enemies probably helps a lot. Fighter also crits cyber zombie which basically one shots it.
- Some above-average rolls on the rest of the party's ranged damage.
- Very easy battle

Encounter 2 - 2x Computer Glitch Gremlin, 1x Corpse Fleet Infantry (Moderate)
Init - Envoy, Soldier, Mystic, Gremlin (Bottom), Fighter, Gremlin (Top), Corpse Fleet
- Not a really hard encounter. Fighter fails both saves vs Thunderstrike but gremlins roll low.
- Rest of the party's combined damage output can take out the fleet infantry and the gremlins don't do much afterwards.

Encounter 3 - 1x Aeon Guard Soldier, 2x Cybernetic Zombie (Extreme)
Init - Mystic, Fighter, Envoy, Cyber Zombie (Right), Aeon Guard, Soldier, Cyber Zombie (Left)
- Mystic uses runic weapon on the fighter
- Fighter cleaves through a zombie in 1 turn
- Literally the only character that matters is the fighter. They contribute ~90% of the party's damage output. Pretty sure the fighter (and maybe the mystic for healing) could have solo'd these encounters.
- Spells used: Runic Weapon
- Aeon Guard hits like a wet noodle, a creature 3 should not be doing 1d8 damage. It crit the fighter and didn't even do 1/2 of their health as damage WITH the suppress bonus.

Encounter 4 - 2x Tashtari (Extreme)
Init - Mystic, Tashtari (Right), Fighter, Envoy, Tashtari (Left), Soldier
- Some really bad dice luck on concealment checks after getting muzzle flashed (several 1-4s) means a 2HP tashtari lives far longer than it should.
- Fighter goes down after Mystic used both Heal and Vitalize, one tashtari still at full HP, party loses because everyone else has very little damage.
- Spells used: Runic Weapon.
- Winnable with different dice luck, probably not in the party's favour though (maybe 40%)

--------------------------------------------------------------

Encounters @ Level 1 (Ranged Party)

Encounter 1 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Can't hunted shot with SF guns because they're all reload 1 (the ranger swapped to a bow after realising this)
- Not really that painful these enemies are super low damage

Encounter 2 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Still really easy, mystic might have gone down to double thunderstrikes but the enemies' damage past that is basically nil

Encounter 3 (Redo)
Init - same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Party wins but envoy hits dying 4 (hero point to survive staying at wounded 3).
- This is with soldier and envoy switching to their backup slashing weapons to make use of weakness 10 slashing.
- Aeon Guard struggles to do any damage. Crit and hit on the envoy did only 3/4 of their HP, required 2 follow up hits from zombie to get to 0...
- Spells used: Runic Weapon

Encounter 4 (redo)
Init - same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Tashtaris get pretty lucky this time, both first muzzle beam attacks crit. One on the ranger who falls unconscious to persistent damage, one on the mystic and highrolls KOing them outright.
- Party very likely does not have anywhere near enough damage to win this, would need significant luck (maybe 5-15%)
- Spells used: Runic weapon

----------------------------------------------------

Encounters @ level 5 (Melee party)

5th level test
Encounter 1
Init - Fighter (29), Envoy (17), Mystic, Serpent, Soldier, both guards
Enemies - Glass Serpent x1, Aeon Guard Soldier x2 (Moderate)
- Yes this is the nerfed glass serpent as per the reddit post, -2 to hit and -2 to damage on both attacks.
- All characters have nephilim resistance (fire) so aeon guards do so little damage it might as well be zero, even when critting.
- Fight over once the serpent died, which even with See the Unseen and the Mystic using Point Out constantly so the party could hit... took 3 full rounds of actions.
- Without see the unseen, the serpent can likely TPK or get a couple of deaths by using Sneak. It is very hard to find and even harder to stick damage to. I don't want to repeat this, but it follows for all future serpent encounters.
- Spells used: See the unseen

Encounter 2
Init - Soldier, Mystic, Fighter (28), Envoy (23), Enemies
Enemies - Corpse Fleet Officer x2, Corpse Fleet Infantry x6 (Severe)
- Very bad rolls on enemy side, officers miss pretty much every attack. The one that does hit is a pistol shot which does 1 damage post resist (1 void 5 fire)
- Rest of the enemies get mulched by fighter
- Officers can't flurry the fighter because of Reactive Strike

Encounter 3
Init - Envoy (29), Fighter (18->29 danger sense), Tashtari (Bottom left), Mystic, Soldier, rest of enemies
Enemies - 1x Tashtari Alpha, 4x Tashtari (Severe)
- Party constantly succeeds saves vs flash
- Fire resist makes the tashtaris do very little damage (their bite attack is quite weak)
- Fighter carves up the alpha
- Not that hard

Encounter 4
Init - Mystic, Envoy, Serpents (26, 25), Soldier (17), Fighter (16)
Enemies - 2x Glass Serpent (Moderate)
- Good rolls for party, bad rolls for snake, party wins
- If the snakes had rolled 1 higher on round 1, or if the second snake hit at all, probably would have been a loss. Yes, unnerfed serpents would have caused a loss.
- Strategy relies on mystic using see the unseen, then revealing light, to uninvis the serpents. Otherwise sneak makes this a TPK.
- Spells used: See the unseen, revealing light x2

Encounter 5
Init - Soldier, Fighter (29), Envoy (27->29 danger sense), Nihili (Middle), Nihili (Right), Mystic, Nihili (Left)
Enemies - 3x Nihili (Severe)
- Pretty lucky max roll -> CF save area fire
- Fire resist forces nihilis into melee, way too slow to get anywhere relevant and get cut to pieces by fighter.

Encounter 6
Init - Envoy (28), Fighter (23->28 danger sense), Bastorox (26), Emganat (Bottom), Soldier, Mystic, Emganat (other two)
Enemies - 1x Bastorox, 3x Emganat (Severe)
- Burrow kiting is a serious issue, a 3rd level monster should not have the ability to burrow and a ranged attack
- Bastorox died round 2, playing this out is fruitless - mystic has 1 vitalize and a slowly regenerating pool of healing that should outpace the emganat's single strike damage per round. 4 ready attacks from the party will likely win.

Encounter 7
Init - Elite Bastorox (30), Fighter (24), Envoy (18->24 danger sense), Mystic, Soldier, both Nihilis
Enemies - 1x Elite Bastorox, 2x Nihili (Extreme)
- Again not really too hard, 25 speed enemies struggle to close space.
- Mystic keeps fighter and self topped off after a bioelectric bolt
- Couple nat 20s on the party's side
- Easy win
- Resources used: Practiced Influencer

Encounter 8
Init - Crest-Eaters (3 right - 31, 30, 30), Envoy (22), Fighter (19->22 danger sense), Crest Eater (left), Soldier, Mystic
Enemies - 4x Crest-Eater (Severe)
- Crest eaters win initiative and beat the party to a pulp. Envoy, soldier and mystic basically forced to eat extreme+ attack high damage reactive strikes to do anything due to 10ft reach.
- Fighter drops on round 2, party concedes.
- Mystic did manage to get off a CF calm though.
- Spells used: Calm.

Encounter 8 (Redo)
Init - Soldier, Fighter (28), Envoy (24->28 danger sense), Crest-Eaters (3 rightmost, 26, 25, 24), Mystic, Crest-Eater (Leftmost)
Enemies - 4x Crest-Eater (Severe)
- Mystic gets a good 2 F 1 CF calm, and 3 hero points spent on r1 ensure a crest eater dies
- Party win from there, overall probably 60-70% this party wins a severe encounter, monster definitely overtuned.
- Soldier and Envoy don't do enough damage and get pummelled by reactive strike. Encounter winning is entirely down to Calm and fighter.
- Spells used: Calm.

--------------------------------------

Encounters @ level 5 (Ranged party)

Encounter 1 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged.
- See the Unseen makes this easy, the aeon guards still pose no actual threat despite scoring two critical hits on the mystic they managed to do a total of about 10 damage.
- Spells used: See the Unseen.

Encounter 2 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Level 1 enemies do basically no damage, even a CF vs area fire rolls a 1 on the 1d6 for a grand total of 2 damage.
- Both lead salvos miss, the 25 speed officers struggle to get into melee to do their flurry
Party wins pretty easily.

Encounter 3 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Fire resist nullifies tashtari's ranged attacks, leaving them only with an extremely weak melee option
- Easy win for party

Encounter 4 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replaced melee fighter with ranged
- Envoy rolls straight 15+s in the first 2 rounds of combat, and 2 nat 20 crits, defeating one serpent before it gets a second turn
- Still dangerously close to KOing the mystic and getting a win by Sneak afterwards.
Needed 2 Revealing Lights and See Invis, a perfect counter
- If there were a 3rd serpent it's a definite loss, as of currently it might be ~50/50
- Spells used: See the Unseen, Revealing Light x2.

Encounter 5 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Same story, fire damage ranged weapon forces Nihili to engage in melee. Too slow to do so
- Low AC is a killer, they get crit a lot. They don't have significantly better HP.
- Did use gravity grab to drag the fighter into flanking. Still missed twice.

Encounter 6 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Burrow kiting makes encounter take forever but emganats can't really do enough damage to burn through 2 vitalizes and vitality pool
- Not very hard

Encounter 7 (Redo)
Init - same as before replace melee fighter with ranged
- Mystic having good fort and will makes them really hard to nab with suffocation
- Took a bit longer than the melee party due to lacking damage output
- Still very easy though, the fighter got down to maybe 1/3 and was the only one that took meaningful damage. Everything else was resourcelessly healed off by the mystic with 2 vitalizes and transfer.

Encounter 8 (Redo with init 1)
Init - Same as before replace melee fighter with ranged
- Positioning looks weird, but that's because the party is deployed to block for the mystic, as is the crest eaters have a hard time threatening the mystic with more than 3 attacks and 2 reactive strikes
- The party takes a couple reactive strikes and a few hits killing one threatening crest eater so the mystic can step out and Calm the other 3. They all fail, so party wins. This singular set of rolls is basically all that matters in this fight.
- Other party probably could have won with the same deployment
- Monster still overtuned though.

Encounter 8 (redo with init 2)
Init - Same as previous, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Party gets a lot of lucky crits (and crest-eaters don't), combined with 3 hero point expenditures, healer's gloves and blocking they manage to get a win here
- Probably <50% win rate

----------------------------------------------------------------

I just finished running a series of 16 combats (with some repeats due to losses) for the Commander and Guardian. In total, we did this twice, the first time we overall didn't feel the Guardian fit with the party so we tried to make a party that would help the Guardian shine, then reran all 16 combats. In total we did 36 fights including the repeats.

The building rules tried to keep as close as what we know is in the remaster. This meant sources were limited to *Player Core* and *Rage of the Elements*. We didn't get *Howl of the Wild* until midway through the playtests. The *Advanced Player's Guide* was also added in because some APG content is in Player Core.

The party is all martial, deliberately so we could run each combat "in isolation" so to speak. Each combat is part of a single encounter day, the only daily resource is Battle Medicine on the Commmander which wasn't actually used that frequently, and Nephilim Wings on the melee party so they don't get cheesed by ranged flying enemies. All characters have 1 hero point per combat.

I'll just open with the closing thoughts on the two classes as the rest of this post will be detailing the builds, combats and efficacy of each class in each combat.

Commander
- Power wise, Targeting Strike + Strike Hard! or Piranha Assault + Targeting Strike + Aid/Strike is fine
- The issue is that this is pretty much all the Commander ever did in these playtests.
- The mobility tactics that use Steps *do not scale well* into later levels, when monsters start getting large reach, big aoes, etc. These micro-repositioning tools just do not do anything anymore, a single Step barely changes the map.
- Many other tactics are very specific, requiring 2 or more characters be invested in a particular thing (Reload, Raise Shield, etc.) to even be action positive, or can only work if you have an Athletics character *and* they're in position (All the athletics ones).
- Nothing really *competes* with Strike Hard because its the only one that's general enough to work regardless of party makeup, and usually regardless of enemy positioning.

My three suggestions are as follows

1) *Generalize* a few tactics, or make them apply to the Commander + 1 ally. The reload and raise shield ones could be combined into a single tactic that allows the use of one of these 1 action abilities, such as "Each Squadmate uses one of the following actions: Reload, Raise a Shield, Prepare to Aid or Seek". Another 1a tactic could be "One ally Steps, Strides or Escapes as a reaction". Another 1a tactic could enable an ally to use any 1a skill action.

2) *Increase* the breadth of what the commander does as a support class. Currently it only moves stuff around and enables strikes. If you don't need to move stuff, your only option is to hit Strike. The following support tools are missing from the commander's kit and they could use them as tactics: Anything that allows an escape or a reroll against a failed save, anything to help out against conditions, defensive benefits such as ac/save bonuses or thp grants.

3) *Remove* the limit of an ally only being able to respond to one tactic per round. This is just a really awkward limitation that I don't see the need for, and it causes rules questions on what responding to a tactic even means? Does it mean using an action granted by a tactic, or benefiting from a tactic at all?

Guardian
- I was originally going to type up a much more detailed post on its various issues, but I ultimately think it comes down to one thing: This class is far too constrained by "Martial Realism", and as such it's not only lacking *flashy* abilities, but it also starts running into various natural counters to its abilities that it can't do anything about.
- Hampering Sweeps did help out in some combats, but was a total blank in others.
- Yes, Taunt was used on enemies that are far away to get them to either move to the guardian or eat the penalty. Most of the time they didn't care.
- Really awkward that taunt's penalty doesn't stack with prone's penalty when you often want to trip.

My suggestions are as follows

1) If the class is trying to be an *annoying* defender, one that *can't* be ignored without significant action econ issues, then it needs to be better at that. Make shove and reposition scale properly with reach on monsters (+5 ft at expert athletics, another +5 at master and legendary). Other buffs to grab and trip so it can keep monsters locked up, if they want to hit your allies they have to spend extra actions. Let it pull enemies with its taunt.

2) If the class is trying to be a *punishing* defender, in the vein of champion, then it needs an actual punish. *Intercept Strike* is not a punish, it doesn't really impact the foe at all, it just shuffles damage around a bit. Ferocious Vengeance's benefits are far too small for enemies to care about, given Guardian is also behind on martial progression 50% of the time.

-----------------------------------------------

Party 1 - Fighter (Halberd), Rogue (Ruffian), Commander, Guardian (Mitigate Harm)

These characters are level 10, with the level 10 starting wealth using the "midway through xth level" rule, so they have a 10th level item.

Both melees have Nephilim Wings to prevent getting cheesed by ranged flying enemies.

For both parties, the weapon rune choices are Frost and Astral. Guardian has only a +1 striking shield boss, chose a 10th level sturdy shield for their 10th level item.

Fighter's build
1 - Sudden Charge
2 - Blessed One Dedication
4 - Blessed Sacrifice (for the extra FP)
6 - Lunge
8 - Felling Strike
(9) - Sudden Leap
10 - Tactical Reflexes

Rogue's build (Longspear)
1 - Tumble Behind
2 - Blessed One Dedication
4 - Blessed Sacrifice
6 - Gang Up (this was hugely buffed with Player Core)
8 - Opportune Backstab
10 - Vicious Debilitations

Commander's Build (Piranha Assault, End It, Strike Hard, Pincer Attack, Form Up, Shortbow)
1 - Combat Medic
2 - Beastmaster Dedication
4 - Mature Beastmaster Companion
6 - Efficient Preparation
8 - Guiding Shot
10 - Targeting Strike

Guardian's Build (Mitigate Harm)
1 - Long-Distance Taunt
(1 Natural Ambition) - Larger than Life
2 - Shielding Taunt
4 - Blessed One Dedication
6 - Blessed Sacrifice
8 - Group Taunt
10 - Quick Intercept

-----------------------------------------------------------

Party 2 - Fighter (Eldritch Archer), Fighter (Bow), Commander, Guardian

Why no Ranger? Fighter works better with Commander because their damage bonus (higher accuracy) applies to Strike Hard. Precision likely won't as its 1/round and flurry definitely won't.

Guardian's build
- Only change is Quick Intercept -> Hampering Sweeps

Fighter (EA)'s build (Longbow)
1 - Point Blank Stance
2 - Cleric Dedication (Sarenrae)
4 - Basic Dedication (Domain Initiate - Fire)
6 - Advanced Dedication (Domain Initiate - Truth for the extra FP)
8 - Eldritch Archer Dedication
(9) - Blind-Fight
10 - Debilitating Shot

Fighter (No EA's) build (Longbow)
1 - Point Blank Stance
2 - Rogue Dedication
4 - Sneak Attacker
6 - Basic Trickery (Nimble Dodge)
8 - Felling Strike
(9) - Blind-Fight
10 - Debilitating Shot

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Encounters (Melee party)

Encounter 1 - 2x Jah-Tohl, 1x Nilith (Moderate)
Init - Fighter, Rogue, Jah-Tohl (bottom), Nilith, Jah-Tohl (Top), Commander, Guardian
Nilith starts invisible as it has at will level 4 invis
- Not very difficult, as expected from a moderate. Rogue dropped to ~1/3 and was healed up by Lay on Hands.
- Commander seemed pretty good with targetting strike + strike hard
- Mobility issues may be apparent with commander
- Guardian did nothing this fight.

Encounter 2 - 1x Paleohemoth
Init - Fighter, Rogue, Guardian, Paleohemoth, Commander
- Intercept Strike kind of useful here to shift fossilisation from more important targets to the guardian
- Being able to do it twice with Quick Intercept allowed them to take 2 hits, but fossil only triggers once a round, which was beneficial
- Commander's Piranha Strike added probably 30-40 damage, pretty good

Encounter 3 - 4x Cave Bear, 4x Smilodon (Moderate)
Init - Guardian, Rogue, Commander, Leftmost Bear, Fighter, middle-right bear, middle-right smilodon, rightmost smilodon, rightmost bear, middle-left bear, leftmost smilodon, middle-left smilodon
- Fighter armor gets broken, Intercept strike does nothing to prevent it
- Not really all that difficult as you'd expect from a bunch of -4s with no real special abilities. Grab changes hit hard.
- Predictably the guardian does very little in this fight, their taunt is terrible vs multiple enemies... but its also bad against a single large enemy.

Encounter 4 - 2x Mammoth
Init - Rogue, Guardian, Fighter, Commander, Bottom Mammoth, Top Mammoth
- Mammoth gets nuked before first turn
- Guardian... prevents a second dual tusk by doing an assurance trip and absorbs 24

Encounter 5 - 1x Lich, 4x Zombie Hulk (Severe)
Init - Fighter, Lich, Guardian, Rightmost Zombie, Rogue, Commander, other 3 zombies
- Rogue & Guardian both fail their frightful presence saves with HP reroll, Commander & Fighter CS
- Party gets 2 CF dominates and loses
- Guardian way better against the party bodyguarding the lich than for the party

Encounter 5 (try 2)
Init - Rogue, Fighter (HP reroll), Guardian, Commander, Lich, 4 zombies
- Party loses, Fighter got dominated, saved out, dominated again. Crit allies three times while dominated. Rogue and Guardian could not do enough damage to put lich into the ground.
- Commander very good showing with Piranha assault
- Guardian still not very useful

Encounter 6 - 4x Mummy Guardian, 1x Mummy Pharaoh, 1x Elite Mummy Pharaoh (Severe)
Init - Fighter, Rogue, Elite Mummy Pharaoh, Mummy Guardian (middle-left), Mummy Pharaoh, Mummy Guardian (middle-right), Mummy Guardian (Left), Guardian, Commander, Mummy Guardian (Right)
- Tiny map, plenty of chokepoints, guardian still finds it difficult to do anything
- Friendly fired with Sandstorm Wrath too much
- Not a very difficult encounter still, rogue and fighter are able to tumble past the frontline and kill the pharaohs.

Encounter 7 - 1x Iron Warden (Severe)
Init - Rogue, Iron Warden, Guardian, Commander, Fighter
- Piranha strike continues being very useful
- Taunt possibly did something by forcing the warden into Inexorable March instead of just hitting the fighter, which made it take an AoO. Probably a misplay and should have just hit fighter with the penalty.

Encounter 8 - 1x Gosreg, 1x Gongorinan (Severe)
Init - Commander, Fighter, Rogue, Gosreg, Guardian, Gongorinian
- Guardian Taunt kinda did something in making the Gongorinan's club attack vs the fighter a bit worse. Fighter still got disarmed and weapon stolen though, if gongo had better init this could have gone differently.
- Piranha still useful

Encounter 9 - 2x Roc, 2x Young Mirage Dragon (Severe)
Init - Rogue, Fighter, Guardian, Roc (Right), Commander, Roc (Left), 2 mirage dragons
Init (Try 2) - Mirage Dragon (Right), Commander, Fighter, Rogue, Roc (Left), Guardian, Mirage Dragon (Left), Roc (Right)
- Party lost the first time, won the second time. Bunch of flying enemies that outreach them, some Sudden Leap + Felling Strikes were used.
- We actually did discover an issue with the commander here - they’re entirely land bound. All their stuff is Step or Stride. Should definitely say Burrow, Climb, Fly or Swim if you have the appropriate speed. Unsure what to do about their Step tactics when flight becomes commonplace, maybe Step has descaled so much by then and you’re so high level that you’re spamming the level 15 tactic anyway.
- Taunt probably had its best showing here, and even then the net effect of it was still about neutral, preventing a couple hits on the party, but making the guardian take a couple hits. Also the wording on “hostile action that does not target the guardian” could stand to use some clarity on if its supposed to be whether the entire activity targets the guardian at all.

Encounter 10 - 3x Tyrannosaurus (Severe)
Init - Fighter, Guardian, Rogue, Tyrannosaurus (Middle), Tyrannosaurus (Left), Commander, Tyrannosaurus (Right)
- Speed ruling: Tyrannosauruses cannot interact to pick up items (Prevents fighter or rogue getting disarm cheesed)
- Some extremely poor rolls from the tyrannos on round 1, everything 5 or less
- Guardian's contribution is assurance trip, which is something they can do with Larger than Life. Not particularly stellar though
- Too easy, party wins

Encounter 11 - 4x Chimaera, 4x Desert Drake (Extreme)
Init - The party, everything else
- Didn't finish but likely a loss for the party. Flying enemies with an effectively ranged attack in their breath means the melees had to activate Divine Wings to get up there, losing a turn of tempo, or sit on the ground taking them out one at a time with felling strike sudden leap.
- Guardian more useful than Champion here.

Encounter 12 - 6x Zecui, 6x Choral, 4x Jungle Drake (Extreme)
Init - Rogue, Fighter, 1 Choral, 3 Drakes, 2 Zecui, Guardian, Drake, Commander, 5 Chorals and 4 Zecui
- Called approx midway through round one, probably a 50/50 win loss (maybe slightly enemy favoured). Verdict: Guardian useful here, uncertain whether better or equal to champion.
- Guardian slightly screwed by Counter Performance.
- Running theme: Guardian only useful on large maps with tons of enemies. Too few enemies and they just pass taunt saves, too small of a map and its easy to gang up on the guardian. Large maps allow you to taunt far away creatures for a consistent penalty.

Encounter 13 - 2x Deadly Mantis, 1x Tyrannosaurus (Extreme)
Init - Mantis (Right), Rogue, Mantis (Left), Tyranno, Rest of Party
- Party loses, not really all that close.
- Both Guardian and Champion would struggle with this encounter. Deadly Mantises are no joke. - Leaping Grab separates party members preventing focus fire. Also prevents intercept or champion reaction. Rending Mandibles cracks armor making the crits roll. Very hard to escape.
Ultimately Champion is likely slightly better if only because it forces a Leaping Grab on them to separate them from the party and turn off the reaction, rather than Taunt not really doing that.
- Tyranno swallows Commander, Commander completely unable to do anything while swallowed. Not a problem unique to the commander by any stretch. Rupture threshold too high for fighter to hit, rogue is grabbed by a mantis far away.

Encounter 14 - 4x Greater Hellhound, 1x Fire Giant (Extreme)
Init - Guardian, Hellhound (Left), Fighter, Commander, Fire Giant, Hellhounds (both right), Rogue, Hellhound (Middle-left)
- Guardian buys a round for the party by taunting the entire opfor, immediately gets thrown in the blender of hellfire breaths and flanking strikes. Survives only due to *supremely* poor damage rolls, and even then only barely.
- Still a win, triple frost runes against cold weak enemies.

Encounter 15 - 1x Weak Mukradi (Extreme)
Init - The party, weak mukradi
- Party critted (x2, nat 20s) and succeeded on mukradi breath. Very lucky.
- Guardian can't do anything in this combat. Single entity is their nightmare, Sweeps wouldn't help cos of 2 melee chars.
- Party wins.

Encounter 16 - 1x Snow Oni, 1x Adult Horned Dragon (Extreme+)
Init - Rogue, Fighter, Guardian, Snow Oni, Commander, Adult Horned Dragon
- Snow Oni died on round 1, spirit weakness 15 (+5 beans) against a party full of astral runes. Beans were thrown to frighten 2.
- Got cheesed by the Ancient Horned Dragon individually Impaling Horning on character, flying them hundreds of feet into the air and then death dropping them if they couldn't fly or just fighting them 1v1 (level 12 enemy vs level 10 PC).
- Guardian couldn't meaningfully assist, both enemies just passed their taunt saves.
- Champion would probably be better here, certainly better against the Snow Oni and will probably do more damage trying to 1v1 an Adult Horned Dragon.
- Party loses.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Ranged Party's combats
All inits are identical for consistency, this party has the same init bonuses anyway.

Encounter 1 - 2x Jah-Tohl, 1x Nilith (starts invisible as it has at will invisibility)(Moderate)
- Map is a little narrow so I had to move a bit awkwardly to play around reach weapon hampering sweeps.
- Flicker somewhat counters Hampering Sweeps, though it needs to be sustained to do so, so its not a real counter.
- Pretty easy encounter overall. Guardian couldn't help against Visions of Death, but they're also the only party member without Forlorn so they were the target.

Encounter 2 - 1x Paleohemoth (Moderate)
- Pretty good showing for Sweeps here, keeping the Paleo focused on the guardian and unable to escape. A reach weapon means it has to succeed at 2 shoves (or crit a shove) to get out of Sweeps. Also the entire party has frost runes, so Piranha assault made quick work of this.

Encounter 3 - 4x Cave Bear, 4x Smilodon (Moderate)
- Taunt and Sweeps managed to keep a number of enemies focused on the Guardian, though they were incentivised to attack the Guardian anyway due to armor break.

Encounter 4 - 2x Mammoth (Moderate)
- Hampering Sweeps, and the Guardian, do nothing here due to Grabbing Trunk. It's trivial for a Mammoth to pick up the Guardian, move them in such a way that they can't Intercept Strike while still being in Dual Tusk range with another PC, and beat them up. Taunt does nothing either because Dual Tusk targets the guardian and someone else.
- Party still wins but takes significantly more damage than the other party doing so.

Encounter 5 - 1x Lich, 4x Zombie Hulk (Severe)
- The all ranged party and debilitating shot prevents a Stride->Dominate (or straight Dominate) on the first turn, unfortunately 2x DC36 Chain Lightning destroys the party instead.
- The Guardian does nothing in this encounter. Hampering Sweeps cannot help against an enemy with casting or range.
- Piranha Assault is the only thing making this vaguely doable but even then it would need a lot of luck. The melee party probably just needed good init and to pass 1 dominate save, the ranged party needed a lot more.

Encounter 6 - 1x Elite Mummy Pharaoh, 1x Mummy Pharaoh, 4x Mummy Guardian (Severe)
- Bad map for ranged party, really small, tight chokepoints and cover issues.
- Hampering Sweeps does help keep the Mummy Pharaohs away from the ranged chars, preventing reach AoOs from messing up their days.
- High will enemies, bad for Taunt.
- Party still wins but needed a bit of in combat healing.

Encounter 7 - 1x Iron Warden (Severe)
- Sweeps stops it dead, though Inexorable March is something of a counter.
- Highly mobile ranged characters + debilitating shot = this enemy can't do much.
- Didn't really need the Guardian.

Encounter 8 - 1x Gosreg, 1x Gongorinan (Severe)
- Party just severely lacking in damage to actually kill these enemies before the save or sucks start coming. Commander CFs against Calamity, but saves out of it. Eldritch archer passes vs Petrify, fails vs Baleful Polymorph, spends the rest of the fight unable to pass the will save.
- Guardian cannot help against save or sucks, not can it help against broadcasted Mind Bolt.
Sweeps does help lock the Gongorinan in place so it can't fly over to the fighters, knock their bows out of their hands with Reject Tools, pick them up and fly away.

Encounter 9 - 2x Roc, 2x Young Mirage Dragon (Severe)
- Significantly easier for this party than for the melee party, can naturally hit the flying monsters they want with ranged attacks. No one except the Guardian really cares about the Rocs dragging them around.
- Guardian does some stuff with Taunt and moving away from the enemies to provide a penalty, Hampering Sweeps predictably not useful in this encounter. Champion would likely be better than Guardian here as the mirages need to go melee once their breaths are expended.

Encounter 10 - 3x Tyrannosaurus (Severe)
- First time Form Up has been used, getting the party away from the Tyrannos while the guardian stalls them with assurance trips. The combo of Debilitating Shot, Form Up and Assurance Trip prevents swallow on any of the three ranged characters. Larger Than Life prevents the Tyrannos swallowing the guardian because their swallow size limit is medium.
- Form Up replaced End It!, which was also attempted but was ultimately just not a good idea in this combat. Form Up was a guaranteed win, End It! gave a check.

Encounter 11 - 4x Desert Drake, 4x Chimaera (Extreme)
- The all ranged nature of this party meant they were able to split up a lot better than the melee one, making it so the breaths could only hit 1 character.
- Guardian taunted most of the enemies, so they all focus fired the guardian with their breaths. Guardian bought about a round and a half worth of enemy damage before going down, party lacked the damage to actually kill enough enemies in this time though, so the remaining enemies killed them.

Encounter 12 - 6x Zecui, 6x Choral, 4x Jungle Drake (Extreme)
- Party doesn't have the damage output to beat enough of these enemies before they get beaten into the floor
- Hampering Sweeps not useful here, taunt minorly useful but 2 of the enemies nat 20'd it.
- Choral's pure sonic damage on their ranged attack bad feels for Intercept Strike. They didn't use divine decree or noise blast because of the triple high fort juggernauts against dc23.

Encounter 13 - 2x Deadly Mantis, 1x Tyrannosaurus (Extreme)
- Party does better here than the melee party, similar to the rocs encounter getting grabbed and forced moved away from each other doesn't impact their damage capabilities all that much, they can still just hit whoever they want.
- (Arguably a bit skewed, the entire party is master acrobatics with cat fall, and I ruled that the bow crit spec can pin a tyrannosaur when i think most GMs will rule it can't under the remaster addition to that crit spec. Would have been a fair bit harder if either of these weren't true)
- Forced movement grabs countered intercept strike, though the Guardian did themselves become a target of the forced movement grab to prevent this. Armor break was bad for them though. Maybe mission successful?
- Still lost but could have been a win with better rolls.
- Commander has no escape tactic

Encounter 14 - 4x Greater Hellhound, 1x Fire Giant (Extreme)
- Guardian stops the entire OpFor dead with taunt + hampering sweeps, proceeds to get beaten to the floor on round 1.
- Does an unconscious creature still have reach? I thought yes, so the guardian's unconscious body kept Hampering the enemies. Enemies killed the guardian to stop that nonsense.
- Guardian did, however, buy enough time for the party to win here.
- End It! Sealed a victory when it was 1 hellhound + fire giant left.

Encounter 15 - 1x Weak Mukradi (Extreme)
- Form Up used for mobility and to split the party so they wouldn't all get breath weaponed.
- Guardian tries to buy time for the party by walking behind the Mukradi and Hampering it.
- Mukradi is a Mukradi and crits a lot of times, Guardian hits 0 on its first turn.
- Party lacks damage to kill Mukradi before it systematically annihilates them.
- Probably would have been closer if the Mukradi rolled some normal hits instead of crits.

Encounter 16 - 1x Snow Oni, 1x Adult Horned Dragon (Extreme+)
- Unlike the melee party, this ranged party managed to beat this one. Bow Felling Strike prevented a majority of the cheese, but also just being able to hit the dragon while its trying to cheese someone.
- Hampering Sweeps could have been useful if the dragon failed its shove check. Guardian otherwise did nothing.
- Snow Oni went down easily, even with Icy Deflection, against this ranged party. Beans + spirit weakness 15 (increased to 20 via beans) against 3x astral runes made quick work of its HP.

Report is not my own, just relinking it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15DjMMRAqxaur8TIXUvv6NwY9Ik7BMf6o_0bfKHO Rb5E/edit

I decided to copy the format of Kuzcobarra's post over here breaking down all the Psychic feats and features.

As the Psychic is a caster, I will be comparing it to other casters, and make some assumptions about casters based on the current state of casters in the game.

- First you have the Wizard and Sorcerer who are the baseline casters with nothing very flashy going on. 4 slots a level, no armour, a rather weak chassis and focus spells that tend to be supplementary (i.e. things that you do in addition to casting a spell, not that replace casting a spell, though sorcerer has some non-supplementary ones). This should be the baseline from which every caster is measured, what do you gain relative to a wizard or sorcerer in return for losing that 1 slot per level?

- Second, we have the Cleric, compared to the Wizard and Sorcerer, we lose 1 slot per level in order to gain Divine Font, 2 HP a level, faster save progression. Alternatively, if we pick warpriest, then we also get slower save DC progression in return for faster expert weapons (despite my personal grievances with this, I will refrain from commenting, and just say how it is). The Cleric's focus spells are a bit mixed, but most tend to be main focus spells (2 action that you would do instead of casting a spell).

- Third, we have the Druid, compared to the Wizard and Sorcerer we lose 1 slot per level in order to gain 2 HP a level, faster save progression and armour proficiencies. The Druid's focus spells are also mostly main focus spells (With the exception of Leaf Order), and generally notably more powerful than the other class' focus spells (perhaps this is part of the tradeoff for losing a slot a level and not getting a Divine Font like feature).

- Fourth, we have the Bard. For balance purposes, I will not try to compare the Psychic to the bard, as it seems to gain quite a lot in return for losing 1 slot a level - armour proficiency, 2 hp a level, strong focus cantrips, better will saves and better perception. In addition, its focus spells are notably more powerful than the other classes.

- Fifth, we have the Oracle. We lose one slot per level to gain 2 hp a level, armour proficiency, mysteries, free refocus feats, better will saves and, while the oracle is a bit of a mixed bag focus spell wise, their focus spells to tend to mostly be main focus spells that are notably more powerful.

- Last, we have the Witch. We lose one slot per level to gain some potentially better focus spells - however, until major lessons, most of the Witch's focus spells are also supplementary.

What does this tell us about the psychic?

2 slots per level is a hefty price to be paying, when looking at other classes that pay just one slot per level. All of them except Witch are also 8 hp classes, and of those that are 8 hp 3/4 have armour proficiency with the last having the option for armour. If the Psychic is not an 8 hp class, and does not have armour proficiency, then it must have some pretty significant benefits to make up for this even if it was a 3 slot class. As a two slot class, the benefits have to be very powerful indeed.

For this purpose, I will be comparing the Psychic's focus spells to those of the Oracle and Druid. While the psychic theoretically gets up to 5 per combat (although this isn't a great assumption to actually make, practically they get less than this, and even if they do get 5, the ones on the later rounds tend to be less impactful anyway) starting at level 1, they have many other tradeoffs compared to these two classes.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The Chassis

- Key Ability Score: Intelligence or Charisma.

- It's oft been purported that Intelligence is probably the weakest stat in the game, and Wisdom is likely the strongest, as Intelligence's benefits descale in multiple ways (being only trained skills when the game expects expert at a certain point, the difficulty of keeping up expected item bonuses on those skills due to gp cost and investment limits, having to pick skills outside your main stats). Charisma, while it has no inherent benefits, ties in to a lot of powerful skill actions that casters like to have, such as Demoralise, Bon Mot and even One For All if you want to archetype.

- Hit Points: 6 per level

- This solidly puts the Psychic as a backline character who will go down to any sort of focus fire. I am not sure what the assumptions are with regards to how much enemies should remain stuck on your frontline, given most martials don't have inherent features that punish enemies for ignoring them, and can't select these as feats until level 6. But in my experience, if the GM does elect to focus fire on you for whatever reason, 6 HP means you are very likely hitting the floor that round. Even 8 HP with armour can mean that as well, though you will usually stay up with a slither of HP left (from full).

- Save and Perception Proficiencies : E/E/L/T

- I assume the permanent T perception is a mistake that will be fixed for release. No class remains at T perception forever, as of current, as it would make Canny Acumen (perception) far too valuable of a feat for the Psychic.

- For all casters, Initiative is good - going before the enemies or your allies so you can get the most of them in an AoE, or buff before their first turn, is invaluable.

- For some reason, Fortress of Will and Walls of Will have the same text regarding "when you roll a success on a will save, you get a critical success instead". I am uncertain as to why these feats are named differently from resolve/greater resolve given they otherwise do the exact same thing. Same thing with Precognitive Reflexes/Lightning Reflexes. The issue I forsee with this is feats specifically referencing those features that wouldn't apply to the psychic as the author forgot that the psychic's feature was named differently, despite doing the exact same thing.

- While a legendary save for casters is atypical (only bard and oracle have it, oracle having much slower progression on their other two saves), it makes sense for a psychic to have legendary will.

- Skill Proficiencies: (Effectively) 4+Int

- Notably this is the only int class aside from alchemist that doesn't pay an Int Skill tax of being class skill + 2 + int instead.

- Weapon and Armour proficiencies: Standard caster

- Following the weapon and armour proficiency and upgrade times as every other caster except bard (who has a few extra weapons) and wizard (who lacks some weapons), except those that have armour (which will have armour but the same upgrade time).

- Again, their specific armour proficiency is named differently despite doing the exact same thing as Defensive Robes.

- Spellcasting DC

- Normal for a caster, expert @ 7, master @ 15, legendary @ 19.

- I don't think this can ever particularly change to be faster except by maybe a couple of levels earlier on the expert and master upgrades. Though that wouldn't be a significant power bump at all (it would help for 4 levels only relative to other casters).

- The reason for this is, of course, critical failures still end fights when they happen and as such can't be realistically allowed to go above a certain threshold.

-----------------------------------------------

Overall, a very normal caster chassis. If you take out all the levels with standard upgrades (being 7, 11, 13, 15, 19) that leaves 3, 5, 9 and 17 to put features, save progression and perception progression. Evidently, some of this has been stacked onto other levels, as normal for a caster.

----------------------------------------------

Class Features

So what are we paying those huge two slots a level for?

Three features

- 1) Enhanced Refocus at level 1 (although this does not continue, you will have the same refocus ability as any other caster who picks their feat at 12, and you will have the option to be equivalent to them by picking your feat at 18) with some stipulations.

- 2) Amps, which are limited to four specific cantrips per subconscious mind

- 3) Psyches, of which you only get given one and must pick others with feats.

Lets look at them in order, starting with the biggest one

Enhanced Refocus

- From the reading of it, the Psychic gets essentially 5 focus spells per combat starting at level 1... though there are some limitations.

- The five focus points can only be used on Amps for Psi Cantrips, otherwise you only get to recharge 1 (and the extra 3 from psyche are limited to amps no matter what).

- Combat must last at least 5 (Four with later psyche feats if you can activate them on round 2 and immediately go into another amp) rounds to use all of these focus points, which, in my experience is fairly atypical until level 10+.

- You must be using 3 of these focus points on different rounds between when you activate your Psyche and 2 rounds after that. This provides some limits to your action economy, particularly as unleashing your Pscyhe is an action, if you don't have all 3 actions available and ready to use on staying still casting, it can be difficult to unleash on some subconscious minds, and further it can be difficult to use amp psi cantrips on later rounds - particularly because it clashes with casting (I will make a point about this later in Amps).

Amps

- So this is where you're channelling all those focus points into.

- I will go through the specific amps in a later section, but for now I want to touch on one thing with regard to amps - action economy.

- One major complaint about the bard is how "stuck" its action economy can become - every round, the optimal turn is to composition and cast a spell. If there is no disruption to your game plan, you will do this. Without feats for composition choice, you only have one, so it can feel stale.

- For the Psychic, you have two issues. First, you can only pick up two new psi cantrips, and only at level 6 and 8. For two of the subclasses, there is basically only one choice for which combat Psi Cantrip to use (Guidance is usable, but the hour cooldown may interfere and many times the benefit will be worse than mental scan anyway). This means if you want to cast a spell + amp psi cantrip, you only have one choice until level 6, and even then only if you pick up a feat. This could lead to many of the same action econ issues bard has.

- Second, for two action Psi Cantrips, they are effectively competing against (at least) casting a cantrip in rounds 3-5 if you only have 2 actions to spend, or using a 1 action psi cantrip + 1 action for something else. If they aren't significantly better than casting a cantrip it can feel like you're getting the raw end of the deal here, waiting until round 3 and losing that much off your chassis for slightly better cantrips.

Psyches

- As mentioned in many other threads, the class seemingly wants you to get more than one psyche... and tracking all those activation requirements is awkward.

- The psyches really don't feel like they do enough, relative to their drawbacks, to consider "which" psyche you want to use this combat - and I imagine in their current state many players will just pick the one that they build towards every combat, which is easier to track for one and for two, can feel like a round 3 action tax to use.

Other than that, there are a couple of extras the psychic gets

- Replacing verbal components with thought/emotion. Not a huge power feature, lets you cast while underwater or swallowed, which other casters can't easily do. I don't expect it to show up that often.

- Specific subconscious mind penalty. The Int one penalises you for something you defeinitely don't want to be doing anyway, you can be caught off guard, or slowed/tripped and you need to yolo out a spell, but for the most part this is easily avoidable by just striding (you will still eat the reaction, but you won't have the penalty). The cha one deheightens your cantrips, which for the most part given the current amps doesn't matter (see amps later).

------------------------------------------------------------------

Amps

So lets look at the major power feature of the Psychic in depth, specifically all 12 basic cantrips they get to amp. I will discuss the alternate amps in the feats section.

A word on blasting: The game has made an assumption about how much blasting needs to scale to remain at the same "effectiveness" throughout the game - this number is 2d6 per spell level with a minor bump around level 5-6. I've decided to chart out how much of a monster's HP that does, on average against level+0, -2 and +2 assuming moderate HP and moderate saves - as you can see, while it perhaps starts out strong, it starts getting steadily worse.

Now considering the Psychic's damage is worse than that, Here's how much Telekinetic Rend, their best blasting amp, does , which is extremely bad. (And yes, I did remember to put in both heightenings so it caps at 14d6).

I don't necessarily agree with the game's assumption that blasts only need to scale at 7 per 2 levels given moderate monster hp scales by 40 in the same time, but that's too late to change.

One major quality of life change I suggest for all of these cantrips is for all of the blasting ones make the damage scaling work no matter what amp you use, rather than only happening on that specific amp. As of current, there's basically too little reason to use the alternate amps on these damage cantrips because it becomes a pretty horrible use of actions for not much gain.

So, with that in mind, lets look at the amps as they are presented.

Mage Hand

This should be an available feat rather than something you are forced to take, in its current form at least. It has barely any combat relevance whatsoever. At least Spirit Object is 1 action and has a high bulk limit (eventually) so it could potentially move large objects and terrain around for cover. What's the point of this?

IMO, if this is to be a combat relevant feature, it needs to let you move things around to support your allies. Reduce the base cost of the cantrip to one action, and have it be able to give the grasped object to yourself or an ally (Similar to a Thoughtful Gift).

The amp should increase the bulk limit of the item you can grasp.

Telekinetic Projectile

There isn't much to say about this really. The base cantrip is debatable, depending on what you think about the balance of Electric Arc (and now, Scattering Scree which also does the same average damage to a single target as Telekinetic Projectile). You are unable to use the amp'd version with Shadow Signet.

The amp is barely any better, requiring you to crit a spell attack (again, with no shadow signet) to do much more than give you 1 damage per level, and even then, while it scales up to a pretty major push, it's too inconsistent.

Suggestions

- Make the push a slide instead (i.e. any direction movement, not just away)

- Have it push/slide on the success with more on the critical success OR increase the damage of the amp significantly OR just make the Amp 1 action.

This has to be competing with focus spells such as Fire Ray, something the cleric, which pays nothing has access to, and does 2d6/level on a spell attack. Yes, you can do this potentially up to 5 times per combat, whereas the cleric is limited to 1 fire ray per combat until 12th, but you are also the one paying half your spell slots for this feature. I therefore suggest this should be d12/level if the damage option is taken for the amp.

Telekinetic Rend

Not much to say about this one that the previous images haven't shown. Blasting in this game is bad because it scales badly relative to mook hp, the things it's supposed to be good against.

I suggest making it scale at 1d8/2 levels for base (making it in line with electric arc, keeping it mind it has no key ability modifier in return for the better area, but it's also a class specific cantrip) and making the amp replace the heightening with 2d6/level (making it inline with the expectations of the game wrt blasting), which would also make it in line with whirling flames (which does lower damage but has additional areas).

Arrest Trajectory

The Amp for this is... reasonable, effectively a 1 action telekinetic projectile with a condition.

The problem is

- 1) It's too hard to activate. It should start at +2 circumstance bonus to AC (non scaling), it's not like a +X to AC gets better or worse as you level, so there's no reason for this to start out at +1 and scale to +2.

- 2) Not enough monsters used physical ranged strikes for this to be relevant. It should just work on any attack roll, at least then it would be a decent support cantrip to give your allies a nimble dodge...

Detect Magic

Again, this should be a feat option. Like Mage Hand, it doesn't do enough as is to justify taking up one of your four amps. Especially given Detect Magic takes 2a to cast.

Suggestions to make this better? I don't know. I wouldn't even have it as a feat to be honest. Maybe a feat that gives you precise magic sense instead?

Guidance

The problem with this is, well, 1 hour cooldown on guidance, and it doesn't do a heck of a lot. It affects... 3 out of 20 dice faces, maybe a couple more. Any crit fail number, F->S number and S->CS number. It's barely better than regular guidance. I understand that they don't want to make this spammable out of combat, but still it should have more combat use than this.

Suggestions

- Make the basic guidance effect have the crit fail protection and/or allow it to be used post roll.

- Make the amp guidance effect able to work even if the target is temporarily immune, then have it do something crazy like let them twice and take higher instead of getting the +1.

Mental Scan

Fine as is, just specify what you roll to Aid (I suggest spell attack or occultism check).

Future Path

This spell utterly fails at what it's trying to do. It lets you move without provoking... but casting the spell itself provokes, so what's the point? The Amp heighten effect is just really terrible econ for what it is.

Suggestions

- Make casting the spell itself not provoke.

- Amp effect reduces the cost to 1a instead of giving a second stride.

- Amp heighten effect allows the ally to spend their reaction to Stride without provoking.

Daze

The problem is, while flavorful for a psychic, Daze itself is a terrible spell. It doesn't do enough damage for the action cost, and the Amp doesn't... really do enough either.

Suggestions

- Make it buff the basic effect of daze to d6/spell level + key ability mod.

- Amp effect is mental weakness 1 and -2 status to will saves on failure, scaling by an additional mental weakness 1 per heighten.

Message

Completely fine as is. I might suggest buffing the basic effect of Message to give the ally a Step or Stand as a reaction, but it doesn't really need it.

Nudge Intent

Like most punisher mechanics, the problem is that both halves have to look almost broken by themselves for the spell to feel strong, as the opponent will always pick whichever is better for them. Nudge Intent... neither half is very strong. Your opponent gets to choose between a worse fear 1 and a worse command 1... not good at all.

Suggestions

- Make it so the commanded action must be the first action they take on their turn.

- Increase the frighten values by 1 (as this applies frighten on their turn, it will immediately tick down at the end of the turn, which makes it worse than it seems).

Shatter Mind

Similar problems to telekinetic rend, it just doesn't do enough damage. Lament, a level 1 cleric domain spell does more damage than this. And yes, this does inflict a (minor) amount of stupefied, but still why is the damage scaling so slow?

Suggestions

- Increase the base damage to 4d6 and the base heighten to 1d6/spell level. This should at least make it a fairly good at-will option at a time where other casters are probably not using their cantrips anymore. It's still a 15 foot cone on a 6hp cloth caster.

- Amp makes it 8d6 with 2d6 heightening (i.e. 2d6/spell level) in addition to other effects. Cones are generally worse than 2 5ft bursts of choice, and this is a level 8 feat rather than something you get at level 1, so I'm ok with it being slightly better than Telekinetic Rend in that regard.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Will go through the feats later.

A departure from my previous level 20 playtests, I stopped using the Arcane Dungeon flipmap (because I had repeat playtesters), and decided to standardise the encounters a bit more. I had two groups:

- Monk, Barbarian (Giant), Thauma (Weapon main, chalice, lantern), Thauma (Chalice main, weapon, lantern)

- Thauma (Amulet main, weapon, chalice), Barbarian (Animal), Psychic (Silent Whisper w/ Mental Scan from feat - decided to go int because we already knew Cha was better). There was a second psychic, but she only showed up for the final encounter - got confused on timezones, I weak adjusted the monsters.

Chargen Rules

Feel free to pick whatever you want, though try to push them as far as they can feasibly go mechanically.
- At least one person much play one of each of the new classes (the psychic for the first group dropped and got replaced with the monk last minute, so .
- If you pick the same class as someone else, pick a different subclass/different style.
- 240000GP to buy anything you want of 20th level or lower that has a price tag (all uncommon, rare and unique options allowed provided there is a price).
- For playtesting reasons I ask that you don't pick the following options as they will distort data - Pin to the Spot, Heaven's Thunder, Sixth Pillar Mastery (if playing Wild Druid), Bone Croupiers from Animate Dead, Scare to Death.
- Revive, Heal to full and remove all conditions after each encounter.
- Everyone starts with 3 hero points, none will be handed out.

Encounters

- 1 Maharaja + 4 Sumbreivas (Moderate, benchmark)

- 8 Demiaviggas (Weak adjusted for the second group) (Severe)

- 4 Star Archons, evilswapped (essentially exchange all good instances to evil and vice versa) (Severe)

- 1 Elder Wyrmwraith (Severe)

- 1 Ouroboros + 1 Elite Clockwork Amalgam (Severe, group 1 didn't fight this)

- 1 Elite Hekatonkhaires Titan (by request, group 1 also didn't fight this) (Extreme+)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -

Group 1 breakdown

With no dedicated support character at all, level 20 was really really hard for them. They also didn't use Aid, which made the solo fights a lot harder than they needed to be. For this group I went with the ruling of Esoteric Antithesis applies to all foes of the same type.

Encounter 1 - 8 Demiaviggas

- Due to some focus fire on the chaliceturge, he nearly went down, but ultimately no one went down in this encounter.

- These monsters don't particularly do much as a straight up threat.

- Implement's Assault and Whirlwind Strike were used to some effect here to clean up the Demiaviggas, but it took a while with the quantity of HP that even mooks have at level 20.

- Ultimately, the above ruling helped the thaumas' econ quite a lot but didn't feel out of place for the party.

- Pretty convincing win for the party here, although neither of the thaumas really felt like they were doing anything thauma except ubiquitous antithesis.

- Also one thauma had a brilliant rune, which meant that their antithesis did nothing for them.

Encounter 2 - 4 Star Archons

- 3 Star Archons were at the top of the init order which meant the party got bombarded with Sunbursts, one thauma went permanently blind on round 1.
- With no healing or mitigation, this was a basically unwinnable fight, especially when all of them started exploding for 24d6 and no one had evasion.
- I agreed to not keep spamming them with AoE just so they could actually have a fight instead of a massacre, and ultimately they won after some very lucky dice rolls. Both thaumas went down and died.

Encounter 3 - Maharaja + 4 Sumbreivas

- Monk got mazed, needed a natural 16 to succeed, so was basically perma stuck.

- Barbarian got level 10 dominated.

- Party was forced to stay back due to prismatic wall.

- We basically called the encounter there, it was obvious they weren't going to win with no caster of their own.

Encounter 4 - Elder Wyrmwraith

- Again, with no caster or support of any kind, they needed a natural 13 to hit on their first attack (ectoplasmic form) or 16 (physical form).

- One thauma straight up died due to crit fail (bumped to fail) on consume souls, into crit fail on breath weapon. The thauma that died was the one with ubiquitous antithesis and crit failed his first FF check, died before he got a second.

- The rest got ground down over the remaining 9 rounds. The resist 25 all was basically impossible for them to punch through, and gaining 125 thp with each switch to real form didn't help.

We cut there due to time.

--------------------------------

Group 2 breakdown

For this group I used the ruling that Esoteric Antithesis applied to only the single creature, but no increased DC for using it on another of the same creature

This group was significantly more optimised build wise. Both the barbarian and the thauma had a pearlescent pyramid, the thauma had an absolute ton of scrolls (bought) with scroll thaumaturgy - no other scroll feats. She had already played the class at level 4 and level 11, hated it feeling too striker-y so tried to do something different.

Casting is obviously the most broken thing in the game at level 15+ so the scrolls did a lot of work.

Encounter 1 - 8 Demiaviggas

- The psychic didn't use a single amp in this encounter, or psyche. They felt they weren't worth the actions.

- The barbarian lead off with a terrifying roar which crit all of them, and the psychic followed up with slow 6 - 6/8 demiaviggas crit failed the save.

- Thauma was definitely struggling to do much in this encounter, but she really didn't need to. Once 6 demiaviggas were left with only 1 action per turn, it was a guaranteed victory.

- The psychic got close to dropping from some focus fire, but was healed up with soothe and chalice. With only 1 action per turn left, the Demiaviggas couldn't finish him.

Encounter 2 - 4 Star Archons

- The psychic used very few amps this fight (iirc, like 1 or 2) and didn't psyche.

- Still, this encounter was an overwhelming victory for the party. Paragon amulet implement, combined with everyone having energy aegis (9th) and sometimes even Shadow Siphon, cut a lot of the damage out of the AoEs. Everyone was still half or more health at the end of this encounter.

- Helped that one of the star archons crit failed against blindness, and the thauma mazed another one with a scroll (though they escaped quickly) but this wasn't necessary.

- Once all 4 sunbursts were burnt, and they knew the starchons exploded, they just took them out one by one making sure the thauma had amulet reaction to prevent most of the damage.

Encounter 3 - Maharaja + 4 Sumbreivas

- Have you ever seen an encounter get to round 5 and still barely anyone has taken damage? That was this fight. The Maharaja split the room with prismatic wall again, but due to being unable to thread it through a creature targetting was hard. The thauma used disappearance on herself, and the psychic invisibility (4) on himself, they snuck around the side to deal with the Maharaja while the barbarian kept the 4 sumbreivas distracted.

- Pretty sure the Psychic didn't amp or psyche this fight at all.

- Eventually, the thauma got next to the maharaja and used prismatic sphere. Was basically encounter over from there, the Thauma wins a 1v1 against a weak Maharaja while under the effects of disappearance and mind blank.

Encounter 4 - Elder Wyrmwraith

- This group really showed the power of support this encounter. I used the ruling that mental scan aids using spell attack roll - with +4 from aid, and +3 from heroism, the party showed why single enemy encounters are such a joke at high levels.

- The wyrmwraith got 2 turns before it died. Consume souls which only managed to do 90 + doomed 2 to the barbarian (death ward) and miracle to fetch divine aura.

- Having 2 pearlescent pyramids definitely helped, but also just giving +7 to hit was a gamechanger.

Encounter 5 - Ouroboros + Clockwork Amalgam

- The Ouroboros spent most of this combat mazed, the thaum had another maze scroll and the psychic had two slots to maze it with. With only +31 perception, it stayed in the shadow realm for most of the combat.

- Still, the clockwork amalgam tore through the barbarian and thaum quite handily, especially when the thaum/psych were distracted mazing the ouroboros.

- Psychic used a lot of amps this combat, forgot they had dual amp + shatter space, used them, shatter space did zero damage (amalgam succeeded, resist physical). Apparently some janky rules regarding how "start of turn" effects work means that the psychic is never at risk of actually damaging themselves with shatter space, as they choose the resolution of their own start of turn effects and can simply have shatter space expire before it deals damage.

- Message amp and mental scan did a lot of work in tearing down the amalgam.

- What ultimately cost them this combat was that the thaum FF'd the ouroboros and never switched to the amalgam (which would have added 20 damage to both the thaum and barbarian).

- I was ready to call the combat at some point for the players, the thaum said to keep going, and I rolled a string of 18+s that dropped both the thaum and barb. Nearly swallowed the Psychic on the same round (Disappearance kept him alive). The thaum and barb retreated (ouroboros couldn't exit the room) after being healed by the psychic, who mazed the ouroboros again, ending the encounter in a draw.

Encounter 6 - Elite Hekatonkhaires Titan (By request)

- I feel bad for the second psychic player, she made her whole character sheet and never got to take a single action, because this was the only combat she was present for.

- Not much to say - the Hundred Dimension Grasp ability is extremely dumb when combined with its +48 (+50 elite) natural athletics modifier. That ability should really have a cooldown, or cost more actions, or require seperate rolls for each creature, or all three of those.

- Fight went like this - Titan wins init, Grab (Party is paralyzed), Whirlwind (Deals ~140 to whole party). Party can't act. Grab (party is paralyzed), Whirlwind (Deals ~120 to whole party). Party can't act. Whirlwind (Deals ~120 damage to whole party). GG.

- There was some debate among the players whether they should prebuff (with disappearance, e.g.) and whether that would be realistic (there was two sides - one stating that an extreme+ encounter without warning would be quite rare, and the other side stating that it can warp in from anywhere with no notice). Ultimately I rolled a dice to determine if they could prebuff or not, and it came up not. Not sure if they would have won if they could prebuff.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusions

- While message amp and mental scan are good (and naturally scale well as their effects don't descale), ultimately, at high levels their power doesn't match that of what high level slots are capable of. Particularly, the Psychic's high level feat amps and psyches need to be better. The Psychic here just felt like a worse occult sorcerer with swashbuckler dedication. I'm not even going to make a bard comparison, as everything loses to bard, but the Psychic is definitely worse than a sorcerer. Ultimately the problem is that damage naturally descales in two ways - not only does enemy HP get higher, which means that any damage bonus is not making your thing better, merely making it keep up (and woe is you if it grows slowly such that you are actually losing relative power) but also mook hp gets higher relative to on level HP, which means that AoE damage just becomes less and less effective.

- Thaumas are very squishy, without support (self-support with scrolls inclusive) they fall over very easily for something that wants to frontline. The thauma in the second group used an air repeater (G&G weapon) with the ruling that Reload 0 on repeating weapons doesn't require a free hand and still fell over hard when she had any sort of focus fire put on her.

- Thauma player is mostly displeased with the state of the class, especially at higher levels. It feels too striker-y to her and she wants it to be more implement focused.

- Magic at high levels is what wins fights.

----------------------

Will update with the math breakdown by encounter when I review the logs

Due to the some strange ways that recall knowledge feats interact with recall knowledge, I'm wondering if it would be better if Find Flaws didn't reference Recall Knowledge at all.

Specifically, I'm refererring to feats such as

- Bestiary Scholar which greatly increases the success chance on your main feature for a class feat.
- Unmistakable Lore, which, combined with Esoteric Lore removes the chance of crit fail from your main class feature entirely.
- Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover which would be another skill feat that greatly increases the chance of your main feature working if you weren't forced to have dubious knowledge.

I wonder if it would be better to simply give the class Esoteric Lore at level 1, have it scale to expert (or master) naturally, then change the text of Find Flaws to simply be

"Make an Esoteric Lore check against a standard DC of the target's level (other text as needed such as "only against a creature you can see/investigating, cha sub, etc.).

....
CS: XXXX

S: XXXX

F: XXXX

CF: XXXX"

With no reference to Recall Knowledge at all, so it doesn't interact with any of these feats (and force some of them to be must-haves).

Both of these playtest classes seem to be in a pretty good shape, certainly much better than the previous 8 playtest classes. The Thaumaturge looks almost release-worthy as is, just missing a few things.

But there's still some rough edges to the class that should probably be ironed out.

- 1) Recall knowledge DCs vs rarer creatures - this should be a something the Thaumaturge is good at, but in fact they're at their worst against rarer creatures. With the DC adjustments and recall knowledge's already not impressive success rate given it requires so many different skills, this can prove troublesome. For instance, if you were to play Fall of Plaguestone, the first boss has a recall DC of 28 (Level 3 unique). Your modifier is +7, so you need a 12 to not crit fail and get your bonus. Perhaps Thaumaturge should ignore DC adjustment for rarity.

- 2) Esoteric Lore (and related "all lore") skills - more a clarification wanted than anything. Do they get a DC adjustment for specificity? If so, how much? Also, they don't get an item bonus until 17th at which point they suddenly get +3 from diadem of intellect - perhaps a general +x to recall knowledge item is wanted. Maybe Thaumaturge can just get +1 item to RK per implement they have.

- 3) Weaknesses - Thaumaturge does nothing if you're already triggering the weaknesses, which seems a little bit backwards. In fact, one level's difference can mean as much as 11 or 12 damage per attack if you already had the relevant weakness being procc'd, as you could be moving to a custom weakness which would always add the full damage. Perhaps this should increase the weakness, or Esoteric Antithesis should just do 1 damage that is a separate damage instance (so it triggers the weakness again) and the value should be reduced to 1 + half level (so its the same damage bonus). Also it is unclear if you choose what weakness to use in the case that multiple apply - for instance if you have a frost weapon against a creature with weakness 10 to silver and weakness 10 to cold, can I choose which one to treat my weapon damage as? If not, what determines what damage type my weapon does (as it can mean a significant damage difference).

- 4) No key str/dex - Just feels a little bit janky as a balancing factor, if it is intended to be a balancing factor, why is it only relevant for half the levels? And if it isn't, why is there no ability to key str or dex? Same issue as the inventor in this case.

- 5) Implement Balance - Initial impressions is that Amulet and Weapon are by and large the best. Chalice is reasonable but it's essentially a weaker Lay On Hands - the THP is quite small even if you can constantly refresh it. Wand and Lantern seem extremely weak by comparison. Wand does very little damage for 2 actions, I guess it's supposed to be comparable to a cantrip but its a cantrip on a martial class. Lantern just has too few combat benefits for a combat feature.

Overall, both of these classes seem to be in a much better spot than the previous 8 playtest classes though they do both have some rough edges. Here is my initial thoughts on the psychic.

Aside from most of the class feats feeling incredibly mediocre, with many of the alternative amps and psyches just not doing enough, the base amps and psyche need to be a lot better. Currently, the only good one (IMO) is the message one, because reaction strikes are insanely good in this game, and getting one unconditionally on your martial every round for 5 rounds is pretty good.

So, my thoughts

- Unleash focused intent damage bonus should just apply to all spells.

- Telekinetic projectile should have some push on a regular success as well.

- Telekinetic Rend needs to do more damage (probably fine if Unleash Focused Intent gets buffed as above).

- Arrest Trajectory is kind of niche in only applying against physical ranged strikes... also should just give +2 baseline instead of needing to wait until 13th a +2.

- Infinite Eye in general just needs to be better, all of the options are very weak. At the least, Future Sight should amp to be 1a instead of giving a double stride.

- Daze should give higher mental weakness or do more damage baseline.

- Message one is fine as is.

- Shatter Mind needs to do more damage (probably fine if unleash focused intent gets buffed). For a class cantrip this is barely better than Haunting Hymn.

Updated my summon guide for bestiary 3

Not a lot of good summons this time, but there were a few winners

- Skunk

- Giant Skunk

- Tyrannosaurus Skeleton

- Giant Opossum

- Empress Bore Worm (and oh boy is this one cheesy).

Looking at the repeating crossbow in AV3, there's a twofold issue with this weapon that I think should be addressed if more of these weapons get introduced in G&G

----

1) Shootist's Bandolier

Why does this item exist? It's in the same book as the repeating crossbow. It would be one thing if it was introduced later to fix issues with the weapon (though i'd still be grumpy about doing that instead of just reprinting the weapon) but in the same book? Why not just have the repeating crossbow take 2 actions to swap the magazine by base and remove this item? As far as I can tell there's no penalty to having it aside from the trivial 1gp cost.

---

2) Reloading

This weapon is incredibly unclear on if you need a free hand or not to "reload" it between each shot. As far as I can tell, by RAW, every reload weapon - including reload 0 ones - need a free hand to reload.

While all weapons need some amount of time to get into position, many ranged weapons also need to be loaded and reloaded. This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons. This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn.

An item with an entry of “—” must be drawn to be thrown, which usually takes an Interact action just like drawing any other weapon. Reloading a ranged weapon and drawing a thrown weapon both require a free hand. Switching your grip to free a hand and then to place your hands in the grip necessary to wield the weapon are both included in the actions you spend to reload a weapon.

Now the repeating crossbow says it autoloads

This weapon features an ingeniously designed catch mechanism at the top of the flight grove, just in front of the latch, which automatically loads a bolt from a magazine and resets the string each time the weapon is fired. A typical repeating hand crossbow magazine holds five bolts.

But the repeating trait also says the weapon needs to be cocked, which would require a hand to do so anyway

A repeating weapon is typically a type of crossbow that has a shorter reload time. These weapons can’t be loaded with individual bolts like other crossbows; instead, they require a magazine of specialized ammunition to be loaded into

a special slot. Once that magazine is in place, the ammunition is automatically loaded each time the weapon is cocked to fire, reducing its reload to the value in its reload entry (typically 0). When the ammunition runs out, a new magazine must be loaded, which requires a free hand and 3 Interact actions (to remove the old magazine, retrieve the new magazine, and slot the new magazine in place). These actions don’t need to be consecutive.

So which is it? Does the weapon need a free hand to "reload" between each shot? Or is the repeating trait supposed to override that? An additional clarifying sentence to the repeating trait would be good.

I’ve updated my monster stats spreadsheet, using easytool instead of AoN to pull the monsters.

Results can be found here

The FAQ page has been updated with bestiary 2 errata

Page 19: In the ankou's skills, change Bluff to Deception.

Page 34: The basidirond’s hallucinogenic cloud is missing all its traits. These should be incapacitation, mental, and poison.

Page 57: The culdewen should be uncommon, and several abilities didn't work quite right, making it unnecessarily difficult for PCs to escape the culdewen's hook. Add the uncommon trait. In Hooked, change “The fish hook can be removed only if a creature spends an Interact action and succeeds at a DC 25 Athletics check to pull it free.” to “The fish hook can be removed if a creature Escapes (DC 25), pulling it free. In Land the Fish, after “On a success, the creature is restrained by the culdewen.” add “Escaping from the restrained condition (DC 25) also allows a creature to remove the hook.

Page 61: Change the thanadaemon's Focus Gaze’s effect to say “The thanadaemon glares at a single creature they can see within 30 feet. If the target wasn’t already frightened, they must immediately attempt a DC 33 Will save against the thanadaemon's terrifying gaze. If the target was already frightened, they must attempt a DC 33 Will save or become fleeing for 1d4 rounds; this second effect has the incapacitation trait. After attempting its save, the creature is temporarily immune to this ability until the start of the thanadaemon's next turn.”

Page 70: Add the uncommon trait to the Denizen of Leng.

Page 93: The Giant Cockroach Swarm is listed as Small, but should be Large

Page 99: The drainberry bush should have been listed as uncommon. Add the uncommon trait.

Page 184: The followers of fate religion should have the 3rd level spell threefold aspect instead of the 2nd level spell web.

Page 241: The skaveling is missing its undead immunities. Add “Immunities death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, unconscious.”

Page 248: The specter's Spectral Corruption ability, especially when combined with high attack and damage, make it an oversized threat for a level 7 monster. Replace it with

Spectral Corruption [two-actions] (curse, divine, enchantment, incapacitation, mental) The specter makes a vile touch Strike. If it damages a living creature, the specter gains 5 temporary Hit Points and the target creature must attempt a DC 24 Will save to avoid becoming corrupted.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected and is temporarily immune to spectral corruption for 1 minute.

Success The creature is stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Failure The creature succumbs to the corruption and becomes a spectral thrall temporarily. The creature is controlled by the specter, obeying the specter's telepathic or spoken orders, though a spectral thrall does not obey obviously self-destructive orders. This lasts until the end of the thrall’s next turn, at which point it is no longer controlled but becomes stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Critical Failure As failure, but the duration is unlimited. The thrall can attempt a new Will save at the end of each of its turns; on a success, it is no longer controlled by the specter but becomes stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Change the vile touch Strike to “vile touch +16 (finesse), Damage 2d8+8 negative.” Note that this also cuts "plus spectral corruption" from the Strike, since it needs to use the Spectral Corruption activity to get the full effect.

As a note for summoning specters, an upcoming erratum to the minion trait in the Core Rulebook will clarify that minions can't control other creatures, which means summoned specters can't control other creatures with Spectral Corruption.

Page 249: Both spiders' bite attacks should be "fangs" attacks. They are also missing their damage type, which should be piercing.

Page 255: Add the uncommon trait to the stygira.

Page 260: The giant tick has an enfeebled entry with no value. In tick fever, in the first stage, after enfeebled add “1”.

Page 266: The Two-Headed Troll's Reactive Chomp doesn't work quite right. Change it from a single action to a reaction. Replace its Requirements entry with “Trigger On one head's initiative, the troll hits the same enemy with two consecutive claw Strikes in the same round;” and change the effect to “While the prey is distracted with unrelenting claw attacks, the head that's not taking its turn makes a jaws Strike against the enemy.“

Page 267: Jotund troll’s jaws Strike should have the Grab ability, so it can use its other abilities that happen when it Grabs creatures with its jaws.

Page 281: Add the incapacitation trait to the ostiarius's Focus Gaze ability.

Page 286: Add the uncommon trait to the violet venom item.

Page 290-291: Moon Frenzy should say "jaws Strike (or a similar Strike)" so that wereboar can use it. Additionally, the curse DCs are slightly off. Change wereboar's DC to 15 and weretiger's DC to 18.

Page 300: The yellow musk creeper's Spray Pollen is missing some of its information. First, it should have the incapacitation trait.

Second, change the failure and critical failure entries to:

Failure The creature is fascinated. For as long as it is fascinated, it must spend each of its actions to move closer to the yellow musk creeper as expediently as possible, while avoiding obvious dangers. If the creature is adjacent to the yellow musk creeper, it stays still and doesn't act. If anyone takes a hostile action against the creature or its allies, the effect ends. Otherwise, the creature can attempt a new save at the end of each of its turns. On a success, the effects end.
Critical Failure As failure, but the condition doesn't end automatically if anyone takes a hostile action against the creature or its allies.

Page 301: Add the uncommon trait to the yellow musk vial.

Gunslinger chassis, as it stands, feels very similar to fighter, but needs the extra accuracy because of how guns work.

If guns aren’t to be changed, I suggest the following:

Drop weapon proficiency to be in line with other martials (master at 13)

Add Level 1 class feature

“You may roll twice and take the higher result for the first Strike you make with a weapon that has a reload of 1 or greater each turn. If you do, that Strike gains the fortune trait.”

From there, get rid of all the [Press] abilities gunslinger has, which don’t work with its awkward action econ, and replace them with [Open]s instead. Make it focus around 1 Attack per turn.

After seeing it played, and thinking on it a bit, here's how I would change the inventor.

1) Overdrive

The biggest (IMO) offender of the inventor class is this hard descaling, highly RNG dependent feature that really just exists as a math fixer for your otherwise lacking accuracy. Here's how I would fix this feature:

- a) All inventors scale crafting for free. If the main class feature is going to use Crafting, they shouldn't be skill taxed for it. Similar problem with swashbuckler.

- b) Overdrive now gives you an overdrive state (similar to panache) when you succeed or crit succeed. Add requirement: you aren't in an overdrive state, and remove the 1 minute lockout from success and crit success. Make the success effect decent, and the crit success effect very good. Which leads to...

- c) Unstable actions will now consume your overdrive state, instead of their current mechanic, to work. Make Clockwork Celerity the base unstable action, with explosion available by a first level feat.

(Thanks to Tali Kinsey on the discord server for b and c)

2) Offensive boost

A minor gripe - the devs want this to be flexible in damage type dealt, so you have the right answer for any monster. The issues I have with this are twofold - not only are current monster weaknesses very limited (fire, cold and good will cover 90% of weaknesses), but also you can only change it with daily prep which means you have to know what you're fighting the day before.

My suggestion is simple. Allow the damage type choice to be changed when you succeed or crit succeed on overdrive.

3) Breakthroughs and Innovations

Currently feel very limited and watered down. I was expecting something crazy but we only got some very minor things.

Either improve the base abilities of the breakthrough (e.g. Armour increases HP, construct and weapon do something else) or make the current level 9 breakthroughs level 1, make the current level 17 breakthroughs level 9 and add something wacky at level 17.

4) Key ability

I believe with the above change to overdrive, INT as a key ability is fine, though I would prefer weapon and armour to have the choice of str/dex.

Similar to my secrets of magic level 20 playtest last time, I ran another level 20 playtest. Same dungeon (the arcane dungeon paizo flipmap), similar story (except I used Treerazer instead of the Tarrasque)... and, well, there were a couple of no-shows so it was a level 20 weapon inventor and level 20 sniper gunslinger against the following encounters. Many of these monsters were sized down to fit in the dungeon.

- 1) Elite Ancient Umbral Dragon (Severe)
- 2) 2x Sard (Severe)
- 3) 4x Elite Marrmora (Moderate, benchmark)
- 4) 1x Weak Solar (Extreme, reflavoured to evil, I just swapped all the good stuff to evil, and the regen/weakness to good)
- 5) 1x Mu Spore + 2x Vorpal Executioner (Severe-Extreme)
- 6) 1x Weak Treerazer (by request, I intended for the solar to replace Treerazer as the "boss" here because there was only 2).

Building rules - 240000GP, any item of any rarity provided it has a price, and any feat of any rarity is allowed. With the exception of pin to the spot and heaven's thunder.

I put a 150min time limit, but they bought 50 scrolls of level 5 heal and like 10 scrolls of level 6 heroism so they only needed to rest once to remove wounded. They had heroism up the entire dungeon after combat 1. Also some scrolls of energy aegis were bought.

--------------------------

The builds

Weapon Inventor using a Ranseur, mods for trip+grapple and extra reach. Can't remember what the level 9 mod was. Skills were Intimidation, Acrobatics and Athletics. Didn't care about crafting because overdrive was so irrelevant at level 20, and he was a support specced (Using maneuvers) build anyway. Invention could be repaired with the level 19 feature if ever needed.

Class feats
- 1) Unstable Repair
- 2) Swashbuckler Dedication - Gymnast
- 4) Dual-Form Weapon
- 6) Visual Fidelity
- 8) Disarming Flair
- 10) Tinker's Meddling
- 12) Attack of Opportunity
- 14) Eternal Meddler
- 16) Buckler Expertise
- 18) Multifarious Meddler
- 20) Derring-Do

Ultimately, while it did use a unique gimmick the inventor had (15ft reach grapple trip disarm weapon), and it was effective at locking enemies down with grapple+trip, it didn't feel like anything another class wasn't better at.

Sniper gunslinger was using a musket, because the arquebus is trash. Legendary intimidation, stealth and acro. Literally forgot about One Shot, One Kill and the damage was irrelevant anyway. Most turns were ghost shot, reload (perfect readiness), vital shot or hide, ghost shot, reload, something.

Class Feats

1) Firearm Ace
2) Risky Reload
4) Running Reload
6) Shattering Shot
8) Grit and Tenacity
(9)) Rogue Dedication
10) You're Next
12) True Grit
14) Dread Striker
16) Sneak Attacker
18) Unerring Shot
20) Perfect Readiness

--------------------------

The encounters

1) Elite Ancient Umbral Dragon
- Fight lasted about 7 rounds
- Inventor kept the dragon tripped and grabbed for most of the combat (also I sucked at rolling the escape check) which let the gunslinger reload without getting attack op'd.
- Inventor went down (used orc ferocity though), gunslinger ended the fight at about half HP.
- Gunslinger didn't crit once, which might have been why this fight took so long (as you'll see later).

2) Weak Solar
- Fight lasted maybe 3-4 rounds.
- Gunslinger crit about 3-4 times, each dealing 80-100ish damage, blew through the HP bar like butter.
- Inventor did mostly the same, but also threw in a couple crit disarms which made it really awkward for the solar to get anything done.
- Fight was the easiest of the non-moderate encounters.

3) 2 sards
- Fight lasted about 5 rounds, Scare to Death was used twice, one crit (but the Sard didn't fail the resulting check). The fight was extended this long solely because one of the Sards used Storm of Vengeance, giving the gunslinger -4 to hit.
- These enemies weren't very threatening at all, the venom never got delivered (they passed the fort save on like a 4 or something)
- Gunslinger landed maybe a couple of crits, Inventor didn't feel like he was doing much this combat though.
- Shattering Shot was used for the sole time in this combat, dealing about 24 damage (3d6+15 fire weakness).

4) 4x Elite Mammora
- Gunslinger opened the fight with a double crit on one of them, dropping it to ~70 HP from 300.
- Gunslinger then proceeded to scare to death (and kill) the other 3 over the next couple rounds.
- Inventor didn't do much, nor did he need to.
- Scare to Death alone did about 816 damage this fight.

5) Mu Spore + 2x Vorpal Executioner
- Toughest non-Treerazer encounter. Nearly ended in a TPK (Gunslinger was at 10HP, Inventor was down).
- Players were admittedly, playing a bit badly and kept stepping onto squares they knew were trapped.
- The swallow whole was the cause of most of the problems in this fight, + the spores massive range + the free action auto grab it has when you attack or move near it, making it hard to escape after you've gotten out of the swallow whole.
- Couple gunslinger crits and the resulting persistent damage actually did a lot to the spore's HP bar, but the debuffs they got from spores and swallow whole starting grinding them down.

6) Weak Treerazer
- They did about 100 damage and then TPK'd.
- Couldn't hit him.
- Did trip him a couple times.
- Got pounded into paste by the axe.
- Survived around 7 rounds (Treerazer doesn't do much damage surprisingly, and they kept passing the save that makes them turn into plants).

-------

Some thoughts

- Gunslinger too reliant on crits. He'd either hit for ~30 damage or crit for 80-120. Very little in between.
- Keep in mind encounters 2-6 were done with a level 6 heroism active at all times, which might have warped the difficulty somewhat (though it's nothing players can't do at level 20 - scrolls of level 6 heroism are cheap by then).
- Inventor was effective with dering-do at being a maneuver expert but another class could have done that almost as well while contributing a lot of other stuff.

I'll go through the math of it later.

When discussing caster accuracy on the PF2e discord server, a point was made that casters had it worse in the playtest. We cross-referenced a few random monsters from the playtest and their release counterparts, and it seemed this... didn't hold up. In fact, it seemed accuracy was actually worse in release than it was in the playtest.

So I decided to do some investigating of my own.

I typed in playtest monster stats (just HP, AC, TAC, Fort, Ref, Will, getting to attack bonus and save DC) in my spreadsheet that has the release monster stats. Then, in the "Comparisons" sheet, I pared down both sets of monsters to the ones that had the same name in playtest and release, and the same level (as some monsters had levels changed) giving a total of 175 monsters.

Then I built up accuracy for playtest characters and release characters (playtest accuracy was a little harder because for martials it was all over the place, but I used the proficiency of a ranger for this purpose - expert at 3, master at 13) and compared the fail rates on spells, and the hit rates on weapon attacks and spell attacks.

The results were.... surprising. It seems martial accuracy got a signifcant buff from the playtest... but caster accuracy actually got worse (slightly on all 3 saves, but significantly on spell attacks which, while they got to use their main stat, also lost an item bonus to spell attacks and targetting TAC).

Reading this table: In this case, "Better" means better for the player (i.e. higher hit chance/higher chance of enemy failing) and "Worse" means worse for the player (i.e. lower hit chance/lower chance of enemy failing).

I haven't gone much more in depth yet, but if anyone wants to clone my spreadsheet to use the data feel free to do so.

Making a thread to document all the stuff that differs between the CRB and Beginner Box, separating into "Changed", "New" and "Bundled for Ease of Use"

---

New Stuff

There's some new items in the beginner box. Keep in mind investiture is not a rule in the BB, so some items (Such as goggles of night) appear without investment. This might be relevant for the Belt of Good Health, which is probably supposed to be invested.

SMOKING SWORD ITEM 3

EVOCATION FIRE MAGICAL
Price 60 gp
Smoke constantly belches from this +1 magic longsword. Any hit with this sword deals 1 extra fire damage. You can use a special action while holding the sword to command the blade’s edges to light on fire.
Stoke Flames [one-action] (concentrate) Until the end of your turn, the blade deals 1d6 extra fire damage instead of just 1. After you use this action, you can’t use it again for 10 minutes.

STORM HAMMER ITEM 3
ELECTRICITY EVOCATION MAGICAL
Price 60 gp
Sparks of crackling electricity arc from this +1 magic warhammer, and the head thrums with distant thunder. Any hit with this hammer deals 1 extra electricity damage. You can use a special action while holding the hammer to transform the sparks into lightning bolts.
Electrify [one-action] (concentrate) Until the end of your turn, the hammer deals 1d6 extra electricity damage instead of just 1. After you use this action, you can’t use it again for 10 minutes.

HUNTER’S BOW ITEM 3
EVOCATION MAGICAL
Price 60 gp
Stealthy hunters and rogues can use this +1 magic shortbow to attack from hiding. If you use this bow to Strike a target that can’t see you and you get a critical hit, the target takes an extra 1d6 damage (this is in addition to sneak attack damage if you’re a rogue).

GREEN WYRMLING BREATH POTION ITEM 5
CONSUMABLE EVOCATION MAGICAL POISON POTION
Price 30 gp
Usage held in 1 hand
This liquid contains blood from a wyrmling green dragon. For 1 hour after you drink it, you can unleash a cloud of poison as a breath weapon. Exhaling dragon breath uses a single action. The breath weapon deals 2d6 poison damage in a 15-foot cone, and each creature in the area must attempt a DC 23 basic Fortitude save. After you use the breath weapon, you can’t do so again for 1d4 rounds

BELT OF GOOD HEALTH ITEM 4
MAGICAL NECROMANCY
Price 85 gp
Usage worn belt
When you put on this belt, its silver buckle begins to glow, which slowly spreads into the heart-shaped jewel in the center. You increase your maximum Hit Points and current Hit Points by 4. If you remove the belt, you immediately decrease both your maximum and current HP by 4.

There's also a new feat for wizards that doesn't appear in the CRB. Keep in mind the Beginner Box doesn't scale anything of these features by level where the CRB probably would say "half your level".

SCHOOL AURA

Your focused study of one school of magic has left you with an aura of the magic around you. The benefit of this aura depends on your choice of arcane school.

Abjuration Protective magic swirls around you. Whenever you cast feather fall, mage armor, or dispel magic (which you can learn at 3rd level), your aura activates for 1 minute. During this time, if you take acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, reduce the damage you take by 1.

Evocation Your aura makes the deadly energy you create even more dangerous. Whenever you cast a spell that has the evocation trait and deals damage, it deals 1 extra damage. If the spell you cast was magic missile, one missile of your choice deals 1 extra damage.

Transmutation Whenever you cast fleet step, pest form, or enlarge (which you can learn at 3rd level) on yourself, you adjust the spell to also make yourself more mobile. Increase your Speed by 5 feet (for a total Speed increase of 35 feet with fleet step).

---

Changed Stuff

There's a few spell changes - to Flaming Sphere (now is just a normal basic reflex instead of no damage on success) and Daze (uses INT mod instead of spellcasting mod, despite clerics being able to select it in the BB).

FLAMING SPHERE [two-actions]
ARCANE EVOCATION FIRE
You create a 5-foot sphere of flame on the floor in a square within 30 feet. The sphere deals 3d6 fire damage to the creature in that square, and that creature must attempt a basic Reflex save. Once per round after you cast this spell, you can spend a single action to sustain it until the end of your next turn, up to 1 minute. When you do, you can make it roll to another square within 30 feet and deal 3d6 fire damage to the creature in that square, with a basic Reflex save.

DAZE [two-actions]
ARCANE ENCHANTMENT MANIPULATE MENTAL NONLETHAL
You jolt the mind of a single target within 60 feet. The jolt deals mental damage equal to your Intelligence; the target must attempt a basic Will save. If the target critically fails, it loses its first action on its next turn, and it can’t use reactions until then.

Another thing that got changed is focus spells. The BB doesn't use this mechanic, instead the spells are prepared to the slot and, once cast, can simply be reprepared.

FORCE BOLT [one-action]
ARCANE EVOCATION FORCE MANIPULATE
School Spell You must have the evocation arcane school to prepare this spell.

You fire an unerring dart of force from your fingertips at one creature within 30 feet. It automatically hits and deals 1d4+1 force damage to the target. Once you cast this spell, you can get it back by spending 10 minutes studying your spellbook.

---

Bundled for Ease of Use

- The Cleric starts with Medium Armour and Expert fort regardless of Doctrine. This is probably because the only doctrine available is warpriest, which only gives shield block.
- Dispel Magic can counteract any level of spell on a success, and uses a spell attack roll instead of a counteract check (meaning it gets buffed by things that buff attack rolls). This is probably because counteracting rules don't exist in the BB, neither does heightening or spells higher than 2nd level.
- The three human heritages bundle feats together. Battle Trained is Versatile Human with General Training (Weapon Proficiency and Diehard), this would be different for wizards normally who would only get simple prof from weapon proficiency, but ease of use. Warden gives a choice between an improved toughness (and losing your ancestry feat), canny acumen on fort (and losing your ancestry feat) or double armour training (for classes without armour prof). Skilled is Skilled human with Natural skill.

There's also some clarity given on the Avoid Notice activity

Move at half your travel speed and attempt a Stealth check to avoid anyone noticing you as you travel. If you’re Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check to determine your initiative. You’ll also compare the result of this Stealth check to the enemies’ Perception DCs, like you would for the Sneak action, to determine if they notice you.

What constitutes a damaging effect for the purpose of bulwark? Is it any effect that has the potential to deal damage, or does it need to be one that you can feasibly "avoid".

For instance, engulf does damage on a failed save, does bulwark apply?

Swallow whole does as well, does bulwark apply?

Trip has the potential to do damage (if the opponent crits) does bulwark apply?

I made a rovagug/tarrasque themed dungeon, the party composition

Phantom Summoner
- Archetyped into rogue because he didn't like any of his high level feats.

Beast Summoner
- Archetyped into bard to be a buffer
- Took conduit focus and conduit wellspring just for inspire heroics.

Slide Magus
- Gnome, using a gnome flickmace
- No archetype
- Took Capture Spell and Spell Parry, never used them (the only available time to use capture spell, it would have been useless because the enemy was immune to its own spell)
- Bought a bunch of potions of quickness and used one before every encounter.
- Bought like 100 true strike scrolls and had an independent valet familiar to draw them.

Pick + Light Pick Fighter
- Medic archetype
- Took dual-weapon warrior as well for dual onslaught and flensing slice.

Building rules
- 160000GP
- Anything of any rarity, items need a price to be able to purchase

Playtest rules
- 150min time limit
- All characters revive 10 min after death with 1 HP.

For this I used the "Arcane Dungeon" Paizo flipmap.

The encounters
- Balor + 4 Shemhazians (80XP) - I sized these down to medium and made them humanoid cultists so they'd fit in the dungeon.
- Weak Grim Reaper + 5 Elite Lesser Deaths (115XP)
- 2 Weak Dragonshard Guardians (120XP)
- Mu Spore + 3 Vorpal Executioners (84XP) - the mu spore was also sized down to medium.
- Tarrasque (240XP) - I expected this to TPK.

Play Experience (In the order they had the encounters)

1) Dragonshard Guardians
- This fight took place in the room with the 3 coloured pools and coloured gas.
- This fight took the longest by far at 7 rounds and nearly ended in a TPK. There were a few battle medicine checks on unconscious characters. The magus went down twice, both summoners went down once. Fighter healed each once with battle medicine.
- Resist 24 physical is rough. The magus had an adamantine flickmace so she got to ignore it, and the phantom summoner had a thundering rune so he did normal damage (-24 physical and +24 sonic). I ended up not using reverberation, except on the thundering rune or on the magus' spells, because it would take too long for a single d6 of damage. The Magus switched to using acid splash because it doesn't trigger reverberation.
- Ran into our first problem almost immediately: Devotion Aura. It's incredibly tedious and barely does anything. 5 less damage when the enemies do 50+ is barely noticeable, and then having to check if you're in range of the eidolon, reduce the damage by 5 and then reduce the summoner's HP by 2 afterwards took a while. Also, it made the summoner die farquicker than the rest of the party because they were taking an extra 10-12 from the AoE effects.
- A dragonshard guardian crit failed its save vs the breath weapon of another dragonshard guard.
- There wasn't much point using the weakening breath because everyone had juggernaut, I used it once, they all crit succeeded, so I just used fire breath instead.
- Overall, felt really rough for the summoners, who basically did nothing else. No ability to put special materials on their eidolons means even if they knew about the guardians in advance, they were helpless. Perhaps an evolution to let your eidolon get a special material, or perhaps tack it onto evolution surge?

2) Weak Grim Reaper + 5 Elite Lesser Deaths
- This fight took place in the room with the statue.
- These enemies are awful. The misfortune aura made everyone feel miserable.
- The Grim Reaper cast finger of death twice and it did nothing both times due to successful save + juggernaut.
- The magus used whirlwind spell... and missed 5/6 of them, hitting only one lesser death, despite only needing to roll a 5+ to hit them - misfortune aura really screwed her there.
- Party was too afraid to do anything cast-y after the first round because of the threat of 6x Lurking Death.
- Ended it after round 2 because the outcome was clear - was gonna be a TPK.

3) Balor + 4 Shemhazians
- This fight was supposed to take place in the room in the bottom left (left of the room with the green gem) but the party lured them to the room with the statue.
- Fighter lost his weapon in round 1 due to hitting the balor. It was the runed one too, so he was basically useless the rest of the fight (he picked up one of the shemhazian's spears which I ruled to be +2 greater striking, but still it wasn't super effective).
- Magus did really well against the Shemhazians - Whirlwind Spell + Weird (I ruled the -DoS applied to the secondary save as well on a crit). She crit 3 of them, causing them to instantly die because they failed (->crit fail) the initial save and failed the secondary save.
- Phantom Summoner died in this fight, a few hits from the balor brought him to dying 1, he was already doomed 1 from the reapers prior and a crit failed save against the balor's death throes knocked him to death.

4) Mu Spore + 3 Vorpal Executioners
- This fight took place in the room with the coloured squares.
- I was mostly playing this encounter for some variety, and had the spore constantly use the inhalation ability to drag the players into traps. Unfortunately, Juggernaut made them crit succeed the saves a lot so I didn't get my memes going that much, but it was still a difficult encounter.
- The beast summoner went down due to getting crit a lot by the vorpal executioner.
- There was some questions on what happens if your eidolon gets decapitated, or even if a phantom eidolon can be decapitated.
- Magus used Fiery Body and hit a bit with it, but most of the damage came from the weapon.

5) Jabberwock
- This fight took place in the room with the circle platform and three coloured archways in the top left.
- This fight felt like a pushover
- Seriously this monster does no damage
- Beast summoner made a lot of use out of transpose here
- Magus hit with a polar ray after missing it the first time, did a fair amount of damage
- Beast summoner hit it with a 4-way overlapped meteor swarm doing a fair amount of damage.
- Otherwise this fight felt like 4x fighter, because the magical abilities didn't do anything or weren't used.

6) Tarrasque
- This fight took place on the second map.
- I expected them to TPK and they did.
- Magus did the most damage... only because she crit once. Striking spell and cast spells did nothing.
- Both summoners did nothing, though one did get their eidolon swallowed whole and then used evolution surge to make it huge so the tarrasque couldn't swallow anymore.
- Fighter hit like a couple times, but resist 25 physical is too much.
- They did about 70 points of damage to it before TPKing.

Some thoughts
- Against the level- enemies, magus felt strong. It also felt strong when it was flanking and buffed by inspire heroics and true strike.
- Against the level+ enemies, or when not buffed, it felt weak.
- Both summoners, when archetyped, felt more like a bad version of their archetyped class than a summoner.
- Transpose was cool and useful
- Boost Eidolon felt both mandatory and useless at the same time somehow. It felt necessary to keep the eidolon up to scratch, but not potent enough.
- Capture spell needs some work I think - it's too narrow right now.
- Devotion Aura definitely needs a change - way too tedious mathematically for what it does.

I'll look through the log and get some stats when I can be bothered.

Unlikely to get any official answer, but just so we can playtest the classes as intended, it would be nice to get an answer to some questions about the mechanics of the classes:

1) When a magus crits with striking spell, does the degree of success modification only apply to the first roll made by the subsequent spell, or any roll made as part the spell's initial effect? For purposes of, e.g. Phantasmal Killer or Disintegrate which have two rolls inherent in the spell.

2) Are the magus and summoner intended to be able to cast spells from staves once they no longer have slots of the same level - e.g. can a 5th level magus cast True Strike from a Staff of Divination?

I don't think it's that far from being workable per se, I just think it's very clunky as is, areas I'm concerned about before playing it:

Striking Spell

Perhaps the biggest one is this feature, it's mathematically useless and essentially gambles on the crit rider to be any good. That's not to say that you can't make something work with the feature as currently printed, but I don't exactly think it's good design that this feature is a dice roll between "worse than attacking twice" and "instantly kill an enemy".

My suggested changes

- Make it work like Eldritch Archer would be my preferred change, and remove the -1 degree of success rider for crits with save spells.

- Perhaps another thing that could be considered is changing Magus to key stat Int, then having them use Int to hit while they have a spell stored in their weapon (or body) with striking spell.

Spellcasting

The way magus is set up incentivises you to take Wizard/Witch dedication way too much due to all the stuff that triggers off non-cantrip spells, and the fact that they have no ability to refocus more than a single focus point.

- My preferred solution would just be to remove their slotted spells entirely and make them an arcane focus caster with focus cantrips.

- An alternative solution is just to increase their number of slots, whether that becomes 2/level/day or 2/level of the top 2-3 levels and 1 of each level beneath that.

- I don't think making them a fullcaster and reducing their martial capability will end up as a very satisfying class.

Chassis

- Can we get a class feat at 1st level for magus and summoner both? It seems odd to me that there's playstyle altering feats for both at 1st (Arcane fists and synthesis)... yet you can't actually take them until 2nd unless you're a human.

- Feels really odd that they get armour prof at fighter levels and casting proficiency at warpriest levels. I would make their armour 13/19 and their casting 9/17.

- Perhaps you could split up their spell attack and spell save proficiency such that they get spell attack prof early (such as getting their spell attack prof with their weapon prof) and the save prof at 9/17.

- Magus Potency being a core feature when it's only useful for 7 levels (1, 7-9 and 13-15) feels really strange as well - what's the purpose of this ability? Is it supposed to give you an attack bonus or is it supposed to make you able to use any random weapon you pick up? Why no heighten (10th) for major striking?

Synthesis

I think slide and shooting star are reasonably balanced against each other, both saving actions in their own way, but Sustaining seems like the weakest by far. It needs something to make it worth taking. I suggest heavy armour prof and an advanced weapon.

Class feats

- Raise a tome should let the tome hand count as a free hand for spellcasting and magus features (such as slide).

- Magus 16th+ feats feel really disappointing but I guess they're not too relevant.

Will playtest one soonish and post my thoughts after that.

So the Tarrasque thinks its hot stuff with the new printing with its whole "Regen overcome by nothing" and "Even if you kill it with a death effect it'll come back in 3 rounds". As is tradition, we must now find ways to kill the tarrasque even through this.

I propose: Method #1 - The Doomed Condition.

Regeneration only stops the creature hitting dying 4 (and dying). If a creature is doomed 1, then Regeneration won't help it. Doomed is a very difficult condition for PCs to inflict, and relies on some uncommon methods to function as far as I can tell.

1) Any death effect that kills the tarrasque (such as Power Word: Kill or Suffocating it with Control Sand), Blessing of the Five (revives it with 1 HP and Doomed 1), then slapping it back down to dying 3 (killing it permanently).

2) Somehow get an Apocalypse Daemon, Astradaemon (+4 Bone Croupiers) or a Skulltaker (+ A Bone Croupier). The Bone Croupiers can be gotten through the Animate Dead spell which will be in the APG (though we don't know what level or tradition it'll be), the Daemons and the Skulltaker... require some GM fiat.

Theorycrafting a build based around throwing the Greatpick with Hand of the Apprentice + True Strike, my thoughts as current:

Ancestry: Human (Half-Elf)
Background: Any with +DEX or +INT, I use Martial Disciple (Acrobatics) as it provides a decent skill feat, though you could do Hermit as well
Class: Wizard
- Universalist
- Arcane Thesis - Any, but I like Spell Substitution

Stats
- STR: 10
- DEX: 16
- CON: 12
- INT: 18
- WIS: 12
- CHA: 10
- Put points into CON, WIS, INT, DEX.

Relevant Feats
- Class, 1st: Hand of the Apprentice
- Class, 4th: Bespell Weapon
- Class, 8th: Bond Conservation
- Ancestry, 9th: Multitalented (Fighter Dedication) - Absolutely sucks that Wizard is the only class not trained in all simple weapons, so you need to take Fighter Dedication to be able to be trained in the Greatpick unless you want to blow two general feats. The bad to-hit due to low STR doesn't matter as you never want to swing with it anyway, just throw it with Hand of the Apprentice.
- Class, 14th: Superior Bond (lets you use this trick twice per combat)

Use a Dagger or Rapier (if you want to use an Ancestry feat on Elven Weapon Familiarity, retrain it at level 9) until you can get to 9th level.

Some WBL should ideally be spent on upgrading the Greatpick, a +3 Major Striking Flaming Shock + Another rune (You might want to take Shifting so you can transform it into a usable weapon when required) should deal, by my calculations:

2x(4*6.5+3*3.5+7)+6.5+10 = 103.5 damage + 2d10 Persistent damage at up to 500ft away on a critical hit.

Maths:
- Greatpick = 4d12 (due to Fatal) + 1d12 on crit (Fatal) + 10 on crit (Crit spec)
- Bespell Weapon, Greater Flaming and Greater Shock = +3d6 on hit
- Intelligence Mod = +7 on hit

The biggest issues I can see is that this obviously blows a lot of your WBL on a weapon that isn't useful more than twice per combat. The shifting rune alleviates this issue somewhat (Only requiring you to spend your 12th level feat on Diverse Weapon Expert to bring the Elven Curve Blade a little up to scratch) but I feel like I'm missing something here regarding optimisation.

Any thoughts?