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I however wish the Solarian could choose Dex or Str as their Key-ability score. That'd make the Solar Flare a little bit more interesting to use if you ask me but that's just because i like having 18 in my primary attack stat since I often find Barbarians hitting more often then my Thaumaturge even if it is 1 point of difference. There's been so many times that +1 has made such a difference.

This makes me wonder if the Solar Flare is ignorable since you don't need dex....we will see.

I bet solar flare uses STR to hit. Don't picture Solarian as a martial class, it's more like a STR based caster IMO.

When SF2 was announced I instantly said: 3 action economy is gonna be fantastic for Solarians. That's not all though, he is now a space age kineticist and that sounds great, kineticist is a success story, a great class, now a great starfinder adaptation/variation. And the SF2 Solarian class will probably be hard/meaningless to multiclass just like the kineticist. It fits the class identity I guess, but not everybody agrees.

The Kasatha only brought the first tradition of solarian training to the Pact Worlds aboard the Idari and SF1e solarians were interpreted through that lens. We already had solarians moving outside that framework in SF1e with the Broken Cycle, Stellar Mystic, and Electrical Attunement options.

Philosophies have dichotomies, but they remain philosophies, so do the solarians, they are different but they remain philosophers.

Personal revelation is listed as being on equal importance with temple training. There are a lot of stories of particularly spiritual people demonstrating remarkable enlightenment improbably early in their development. Dae is clearly meant as something of a solarian wunderkind.

A toddler's revelation is in the space of "wow, is this my foot?"

Solarians are moving away from the portrayal as being dogmatically tied to one philosophical tradition in order to open up the wider and wilder universe.

Philosophies don't have dogma and are open to interpretation.

In starfinder the source of someone's supernatural powers are very loosely described and is open to the players imagination and that's fine. However every source needs and has an identity. So does the solarian power, don't strip the philosophical background from this tradition, it will only make it worse. And also give it a name while you are at it. Cynics' philosophy is Cynicism, Solarians' philosophy is Solarianism?

You want a savant solarian? Excellent! but ask this: Was Bach born a composer?

GameDemon wrote:

"Dae is a solarian. At the time of their birth, they miraculously manifested a stellar mote."

I'm not sure I like this miracle. Philosophy is not hereditary.

Magical black hole/supernova powers go a biiiiit beyond a philosophy.

Just like Wizards babies showing an aptitude for magic after they're born.

Nothing like that.

"The cycle that empowers and guides solarians is a philosophy that came to the Pact Worlds on the Idari, along with the tradition of the solarians themselves."

- from paizo's blog (https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5ljyq?Class-Preview-The-Solarian)

"The solarian contemplates and gains power from the life cycles of stars."
"Whether you apprenticed in a temple or came to your powers through personal revelation, you recognize yourself as part of an ancient tradition — a force of preservation and annihilation."

- Core rulebook

A newborn possesses only basic cognition and doesn't have the capacity for any of these. Becoming a solarian is a personal journey, one that requires time and conviction. This has been the way to become the warrior - philosopher we know from day one.

"Dae is a solarian. At the time of their birth, they miraculously manifested a stellar mote."

I'm not sure I like this miracle. Philosophy is not hereditary.

The prophecies of the oracles was an integral part of every classical antiquity myth. It was the will of the gods and even though the gods didn't have precognition (that only the Fates had), they had power, so prophecies were as good as truth. The gods of Golarion are not that different with the exception of Pharasma the goddess of fate.
However what was really important for mortals was legacy. The Greek word for ambition, φιλοδοξία means literally love for glory. Iblydans should similarly love the idea of becoming legends at any cost. Achilles in Iliad knows he will die and is willing to for eternal legacy. This was depicted quite accurately in the movie Troy.

On another note divination as a school of arcane magic is wrong. For starters it has the word divine in it. Arcane precognition should be quite different from divine divination (lol). I hope to see this change in PF2e 2.0.

Forgot to mention in my previous post the sacrifices to the gods. Mainly animal but in rare occasions human or something else entirely like Berenice's Hair. I doubt Iblydos will include something like this though.

Concerning classical antiquity elements, many ideas to consider, just making a brief list.

Olympic Games. Tournaments are always great background for adventures.
Philosophers. Not all heroes are warriors or kings, the likes of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and of course Diogenes are great mythic npc figures. Also Epicurus's Garden or the Pythagorean religious cabal are great stuff for an rpg setting.
Mysteries. I'm talking of course about the secret religious rites of ancient Greece.
And lastly I wonder if the god fearing Ancient Greeks make any sense for Iblydos setting without a dedicated Pantheon? I don't think so.

It might be quibbling, but Taldor is more Byzantine and Cheliax fills a more Late Roman niche, at least to me, with Taldane/Common equivalent either to Vulgar Latin or Koine Greek. The Romans and Byzantines were great civilisations in their own rights, with history and culture ripe to draw inspiration and influence from, but very different from the world of the Hellenistic kingdoms and colonies.

Yes, great examples, and I'm sure you can find more ...and that's exactly the problem. It's more of the same. City states can be a great part of Iblydos identity, an empire, another empire honestly bore me. Classical era Greece was a place politically and phyletically divided but culturally united. A place of many unique settlements/islands each with their own flare and indigenous populations, some vastly different than most like Centaurs or Amazons. Also among the thousand of islands strange and mythic inhabitants like the ones Odysseus finds in Odyssey await.

As far as inspiration for mythic content and mythic adventure paths, I can't think of something more fitting than Argonautica. A mythic voyage with many islands to explore and many ports to visit.

I really don't like the idea of a "Hellenistic period" Iblydos. Taldor and Chelliax gives me enough of the Hellenistic vibe of the Macedonian expansion. Let's not forget that the common language is Taldan, which became lingua franca the same way Greek did during the Hellenistic period.

Another empire is not what I expect from Iblydos. Instead the concept of city-states is unfathomably more interesting. It was presented in a grand scale only in the Dark Sun setting of old. It's time to see paizo's take on them. Military autocracies like sparta, democracies like Athens, tyrannies like Syracusae are few examples of the endless possibilities of city states.With grand wars among the stronger of them like the Peloponnesian War or truly Mythic war campaigns like the Trojan War, the choices of conflict and interesting politics are truly magnificent.

"Chanting arcane words of necromancy: Rise dead thread frozen in time, rise and live again!"

Iblydos is indeed the string of islands close to the center of the map south of the big desert.

The hero gods aren't gonna be coming back before we figure out when and (more importantly and significantly) IF we have something akin to mythic in 2nd edition. Once we make that decision (yes or no) we can go ahead with Iblydos in detail, but until we make that decision it's not really all that responsible to do much more with the region since we won't know what rules we should use to support it. We have some cool Iblydos ideas in the works for when that decision's made, but until then there's plenty of other stories to tell and places to explore.

And now the time has come. The conditions are met. Will the prophecy be true? Can't wait for War of Immortals, my heart is pounding. A Iblydos mythic adventure path will be mind blowing.

I'm curious is alchemist more of a scientist and less of a wizard now? If so, I'm VERY interested. I want something more than "spell in the bottle" mechanism, spells and formulas should be separate and different. Magic and it's origin hasn't been defined in PF and that's the way it should stay. Alchemy on the other hand is something a player can relate IRL. For example bottled lightning is a reference to Benjamin Franklin's experiment. Sleeping spays, poisons, hallucination inducing gas, etc are very, very real.

And bombs .....ok we need bigger bombs, I mean BIGGER .......WAY BIGGGGGGER. The equivalent of a level 10 spell would be a MOAB (mother of all bombs) for example. Also don't be afraid to use volumetric bombs, the way 2nd ed. fireball was. I can't wait to combo one such bomb with a wizard with a ready action to cast wall of force in front of the party as the bomb is flying toward the enemies. From simple molotov cocktails that keep burning on the ground, to flashbang grenades that blind and deafen, to intimidating fireworks that chase away the fiercest of animals or fascinate the toughest crowd, the real life material to inspire the alchemist's abilities are abundant.

I'm reminding (if anyone cares) that pre 3rd edition Gnomes got +1 Int/-1 Wis, that fits the intelligent but not prudent gnome picture.

Gnomes are great crafters, inventors, engineeres, tinkerers, alchemists, astronomers. Backward compatible or not, some things have to change. +2 to intelligence is a no-brainer, constitution just makes no sense, especially in PF2E noone will miss it. Now that goblins are a core race they can be portrayed as antagonists or rivals.

CLARIFY FROM THE START IF SPELLS AND ABILITIES HAVE SOME FORM OF MANIFESTATION AND IF IT IS VISIBLE, AUDIBLE OR PERCEIVED IN SOME OTHER WAY

Sorry for shouting that, but I think it is important. It change the balance about having access to mind affecting magic.

Personally I am in favor of easily perceptible manifestations that point to the spellcaster, with costly (in term of actions, prerequisites or chance of success) abilities that allow a caster to remove the manifestation, or to make it appear to generate from a different location.

........

OMG don't just clarify but describe IN DETAIL the components, that would be SO COOL if you do that. This will help us visualize the spellcasting, and it will stop any (age long) disputes between DMs and players.

Now I can actually PERFORM the spell on the table instead of announcing "I'm casting magic missile" How cool is that? no seriously HOW COOL IS THAT???

Very excited for PF2E, I love the changes but... the names of the new spells are SO GENERIC AND UNINSPIRING, surely you can do better than "spiritual epidemic" right? It sounds powerful but I can't help myself yawning when I say it.