Frog_The_Bandit's page

So I was going through making a character, and as I was approaching being encumbered I naturally went to look for backpacks - or containers as they're now called - only to discover that the line "and the first 2 Bulk of these items don't count against your Bulk limits" from PF2e backpacks is missing, I get that this might be a way to evoke SF1e backpacks, which didn't have that ability, but SF1e backpacks also increased your carrying capacity as long as you wore them. So if this is an intended change, I think it's a bad change and hope that it gets fixed for full release.

Elemental Transformation is a bit of a trap, sadly. Its very clear that you can’t use impulses in a battle form

Ya, it had two restrictions already (single gate kineticists only and OPD), so it seemed strange that it would also effectively lock you out of your class. Just doesn’t seem to make sense and kinda feels bad cause it seems like such a cool combo of flavor and mechanics.

So recent character building has reminded me of some questions that I had regarding some Kineticist abilities.
1.) In Elemental Apotheosis it states that you gain any speeds listed in Elemental Form. All of these have land speeds, but notably Earth, Water, and Wood have land speeds of 20 feet. Does that mean that Kineticists of those elements who ordinarily have a higher land speed suddenly become slower?
2.) The wording in Elemental Transformation seems to imply that it is meant to wholly replace your Kinetic Aura when you use the feat. Is this correct, or do you maintain the benefits of activating your Kinetic Aura just without sharing it to those around you who may typically benefit from it? (To clarify, would or wouldn’t a Kineticist activating Elemental Transformation be able to use Impulses and gain benefits from their Critical Blast, Elemental Resistance, and Skill Junction?)
3.) If the answer to the previous question is yes, then why is Elemental Transformation only useable once per day?

A weapon fusion placed on a solarian weapon crystal will affect the solar weapon produced by the receiving mote exactly as a fusion placed on any other kind of weapon would.

The issue with this though is that Solarian Weapon Crystals don't receive any of the properties of the Solarian Weapon they're modifying. The relationship between the two is only ever described as the crystal influencing the weapon, never the other way around.

So recently the living world server I am apart of has been struggling with the question of if Solarian Weapon Crystals can have fusions that can only be put on specific types of weapons (for example, how the Chained Fusion can only be put on melee weapons). Since a Weapon Crystal is not the weapon itself nor is it capable of being a melee weapon (following the previous example), is it capable of having a "melee only" fusion?

The design team made a clarification when this problem came up for Starfinder Society. I too cannot find it in the Starfinder errata or the Starfinder FAQ, but it is written down in the Starfinder Society Character Options under Starfinder Interstellar Species (Link to the page)

Designer Team wrote:

Evolutionist: Per design team clarification, the Evolutionist class gets skill ranks equal to 4 + INT modifier. The Flexible Skill ability (page 12) increases these ranks to 6 + INT at 9th level and 8 + INT at 17th level.

Oh my gosh, thank you so much! Good to finally have some sort of official source to this, as well as another good resource to rely on in cases like this! (I wasn't aware of that page's existence.)

You get more skill points and its retroactive. That's it.

It's supposed to represent you evolving, the problem is that everyone can do the same thing every time they level or just buy/upgrade an ability crystal and up their int

I understand what the intent of Flexible Skill is, however there seems to be conflicting values between Archives of Nethys and the official PDF with a parties I've seen elsewhere claiming there was an errata that I can't seem to find in the actual FAQ and Errata article.

Also yes anyone can purchase personal upgrades or bump their Intelligence, but they can't bump the skill rank floor provided from their class as well.

So I've recently run into an issue where it is unclear what Flexible Skill's values at 9th and 17th are meant to be. Typically, I use Archives of Nethys for easily accessible Starfinder information. On Archives of Nethys it says that at 9th level and 17th level an Evolutionist's skill ranks increase to "6 + Int mod" and "8 + Int mod" respectively. However, it doesn't seem to have the correct amount of skill ranks one would retroactively receive for those jumps (instead of getting 16 for the 9th level increase you get 8 and instead of getting 32 for the 17th one you get 16). I was wondering if this was maybe a mistake and decided to check my PDF. In the PDF is states that at 9th and 17th you got to "5 + Int mod" and "6 + Int mod". Immediately thinking this may be result of errata, I decided to consult the FAQ and Errata page only to find nothing there regarding the change. Decided to do some googling and found a Reddit page that claimed that there were in fact erratas; the post on to detail that Evolutionist were meant to start out with "4 + Int mod" skill ranks and that Flexible Skill granted the bump in skill ranks detailed in Archives of Nethys. I had noticed that the initial skill ranks in the PDF were wrong so thought that maybe the Archives of Nethys was correct, as they had the correct "4 + Int mod" for Evolutionist's initial skill ranks. I decided that since my PDF was a year old, that maybe redownloading it would reveal a potential errata. So I redownloaded it and nothing changed. Now having tried everything, I don't know what to do. Was there in fact an errata that never got implemented in the PDFs or recorded in the Errata and FAQ page? Or is Archives of Nethys just incorrect?

TL;DR: There's a discrepancy between Archives of Nethys and the official PDF regarding Evolutionist's Flexible Skill feature, and I'm not sure which one is correct. If someone could clear it up I would very much appreciate it.

So I've noticed while re-going over the description of the Robotic Improvements alternative class feature that it seems to imply here that a Robotic Improvements Mechanic is able to take mechanic tricks that require a drone. However, there doesn't seem to be anything that states as such anywhere else in the description. Is there a line that's missing that was meant to clarify that you count as a drone for mechanic tricks, or was there a mistake?

Small thing, but Vitality options do already exist, mostly appended to Wood and some to Water. It would be neat to see more of them though, as well as Void. Heck particularly Void.

The one thing I'd like to see sneak into a later book is a Metal impulse to allow you to treat enemies as wielding/being made of metal somehow. A higher level aura stance, or an effect that takes actions and requires a save, something. It'd help Metal's options feel less niche, which is a problem no other element has to my recollection.

I know that Wood and Water have healing options, but I’d also like to see some damaging stuff. Have their offensive options maybe be anti-Undead tools? Idk. But I definitely think there’s interesting ways one could explore Vitality design space as more than just healing! Kineticist is just ripe for interesting stuff!

Really glad to see changes being implemented this early on the process! Makes me all the more excited for the future of Starfinder! By chance though, are there any plans on making the item system more closely match that of PF2e? I know it’s a popular sentiment in Starfinder to keep the weapon you started with and upgrade it over time, but in the Field Test it seems like you might not be able to do that with every weapon.

I just want to say, that I am INCREDIBLY pleased with how Kineticist turned out. I love all the changes to the playmaterial options, as well as what Wood and Metal bring to the table. But being as excited and as in love with the class as I am, there are still things I would love to see added in the future. It’s just these two things though.
1.) More composition spells. From my read throughs of RoE, it seems that there’s only compisitions only have one composition option each. I think it’d be nice if each maybe got 1 or 2 more? And perhaps have one of the possible two be a capstone impulse. Cause personally, I’d like to have the option when I’m playing a dual-gate Kineticist to have the ultimate expression of their power be a level 18 impulse of both their elements.
2.) Vitality and Void options! Since both of these have planes of their own, similar to the elemental planes, I think it’d make sense if maybe Kineticist could draw power from there as well.

The description of Roiling Mudslide - the Earth/Water Composite Impulse - seems to be missing an area for its effect to take place. Here’s the description taken directly from the PDF:

”You form water and earth into a mudslide that smashes your
opponents and coats them in mud. Each creature in the area takes 2d8 bludgeoning damage with a basic Fortitude save against your class DC. A creature that fails is also pushed 5 feet (or 10 feet on a critical failure) and coated in mud until the end of its next turn. While coated in mud, the creature falls prone at the end of its movement any time it ends a move action other than a Crawl or Step. The creature can attempt an Acrobatics check or Reflex save against your class DC, avoiding the fall if it succeeds.”

I tried checking the Impulses and Kinetic Aura descriptions in hopes maybe they offered a default area of effect for impulse, but couldn’t find anything of the sort. If anybody has any ideas on where to find such information, I would appreciate it!