Karmagator's page

It's good that Con does something else, but you could probably set the baseline for number of implants higher and also a general feat for "you can handle more implants" would be appropriate (like incredible investiture but for tech.)

That feat exists, it's called Augmented Body.

But having a higher minimum and leaving the rest for CON sounds pretty good to me. A minimum of 3 plus CON (if positive) would be good. Not being able to have that many of them allows the devs to make each more impactful.

More "for fun" augments should have the "don't count against your implant limit" addition in any case, like many of them already have. Some, e.g. Moodskin, are still missing that part.

Edit: as for the split in the book, I think it's fine. Flavor has its place and we still have three big tables to find stuff more quickly. Most people will go to AoN for a searchable list anyway, no matter how it is presented in the book. Especially once you get more books.

As stated by the others, the scaling is not really an issue. But I would still say the basic premise is otherwise correct. It should be better and more interesting and get moreso with level, given that that ability is a solid 50-90% of your combat impact.

But as Squiggit said, the AC penalty being circumstance remains far more impactful than the actual numbers. I would add the damage bonus being circumstance as an issue on top of that. Mostly for future-proofing given that such abilities are not common in SF2 yet.

Having a class that is made substantially worse by common choices from teammates is a recipie for disappointment and conflict. Especially a core class.

During the liveplays, the devs have always run it as applying to the initial attack as well, so we can assume that is the intent.

I believe the phrase "you ignore up to greater cover that they would otherwise have against your attacks" (emphasis mine) means the mark loses even the reduced cover bonus (the +2 circumstance bonus to AC from Operative's Aim becomes +0 in the first range increment with Relentless Aim). "Ignore up to" vs. "reduce."

There is no reduced cover bonus left over. From level 17 onward, Aim reduces cover by -4, so even greater cover (+4) is completely nullified already.

Correct, the feat is useless. Probably a holdover from an earlier version where the Aim cover reduction didn't scale.

No, MaxAstro is correct on the RAW. The "Treasure for new characters" section reads:

If you choose, you can allow the player to instead start with a lump sum of currency and buy whatever common items they want, with a maximum item level of 1 lower than the character’s level.

This is the CRB version (according to AoN), but I don't think that has changed in the Remaster.

Karmagator wrote:

SF2's options are overwhelmingly ranged.

But there's a key distinction between SF2 being overwhelmingly ranged because the developers for some reason decided to make melee options secondary features for most classes, and SF2 being overwhelmingly ranged because ranged combat is a dominant top order strategy. That seems to be the difference SuperBidi is trying to highlight.

A lot of the discussion on the forums assumes the latter simply out of hand because of the former.

I know. But, as I said, those are two different discussions and mixing them serves only to muddy the waters. Even if they are related and people confuse them a lot.

Slamming the "ranged meta" as a misleading buzzword because ranged combat has balance issues is like saying "it rains because the sky is blue".

That is not what "meta" means or what the devs are saying. If we want them to listen, confusing our arguments only risks burying the good point.

A "meta" only describes what is commonly played, nothing more. And that is all that the devs are saying.

SF2's options are overwhelmingly ranged. Even the people who focus on melee will pretty much always have some kind of ranged options. Enemies are also often build to fight at range.

Ranged/melee balance is a related topic, but not the same thing.

I mean, if both PCs and NPCs are typically build to be good at range and you have easy access to vertical mobility... that very much sounds like a ranged meta to me.

"Ranged meta" doesn't mean "melee is shit". Just like ranged martials in the melee meta of PF2 aren't bad.

That isn't to say that there are no issues, there definitely are. Map size and underperformance of ranged characters to name the major ones.

But the ranged meta isn't just a buzzword or nonexistent. It just need a little more pep.

Oh woops, I just completely read over the Soldier getting master in will all this time. Thanks XD

But to me the Soldier makes sense as a CON class, since the thing that selects for "who carries the Heavy Machine Gun" is not "who is the strongest" but "who's not going to get tired carrying the Heavy Machine Gun".

The mechanics certainly don't reflect that, but if we are going by pure flavour: if a character cannot carry or hold up the heavy machine gun or control its recoil, how much does it matter how not tired they get while they do it? Because all of that is STR, not CON.

And even without key CON, any Soldier would stack CON and have high Fort anyway. You end up with maybe 2 or 3 less, which still represents a very "enduring" character.

Thing is, I wouldn't want the Flare to be an automatic part of my character even if it was actually good. Not because of complexity, but because it is completely superfluous to what I want from the Solarian. Which is basically a dude with a lightsaber and cool sun powers. And therefore just a distraction.

So already, that's a lot of space freed up from the Soldier's core class features that could be used to let them actually do things, especially if those things happen to be new and interesting.

This, exactly.

Even looking beyond MADness, power and all that jazz, the side effects of CON being the key stat need so much space. Mostly on the page, but it also occupies some brain space for the reader. Granted, it's not much, but it is there. And Paizo care a lot about things like that, especially in the core.

And what those features do for quite a lot of words is just shuffle some stats around.

Anything would be more fun and interesting than that.

And you are entirely correct. I'll try it "for science" in my group once we have run enough vanilla SF2 for the actual playtest. At this point, my game will have some major modifications anyway, so what is one more XD ?

But for the second part, it seems that people generally don't give a damn. It always goes straight to talking about the Soldier every time, you being the exception ofc.

So I've stopped bothering. I'm gonna write my feedback that'd be cool if these - automatic ones especially - were more generally useable but stayed aoe weapons. Be it through changing the weapons or just by making it viable to have one as a backup. Then hope that the devs manage to do that.

And if they don't, if this is the PF2 reload weapon thing again, then that's that. I'll be mildly disappointed, but as long as the Soldier works then it won't be too big of a deal.

Level 1 Feat I think would be a good approach. Least for the ability to exclude your allies from your AoE.

But then it just becomes another feat tax, because all Soldiers will have that problem.

And it would conflict with several feats integral to certain builds already there, such as Ready Reload.

Bombard can probably stress the use of explosives from grenades (as well as bombs), and missiles.

That and other area weapons, I assume? Because it would be weird to exclude most of them.

Class feature for all of it, definitely. The first part in particular is also just too integral to make the Soldier useful against truly dangerous enemies (your level or higher) to be optional. The second part makes it so the Soldier is not a no-go in many party combinations or common combat scenarios, as you said.

Neither of these should be a problem any class has to deal with, much less a core class.

Let's leave aside mechanical specifics for a moment. This is a pure "vibes" post.

This might be the eternal melee martial player in me talking, I can't help but feel that this Solarian, the Solar Knight, the sole (sort of) melee class in the game currently, is really not "melee" enough.

I would love it if I had only my weapon and maybe the armor-ish thingy. And then my class would be specifically allow me to turbo-melee some fools.

I mean what utter buffoon brings a gun to a lightsaber sword fight?

Yes, that would be an exception to the ranged meta part of "everybody has a gun". But I think having one exception that proves the rule would be ok?

I got the same impression that the QF is supposed to be a zone control tool. Sometimes by buffing allies, but mostly by denying space to enemies in some way.

To me, the goal here shouldn't just be that the player wants this to be up at all times. It should be up at all times through some means that ideally weave in with whatever else you want to do anyway.

The thing that I would want my player to actually think about is where to put the field and what effects would be best at that moment. You know, the fun stuff.

That way they have an engaging tool that constantly influences the battle. They and their team constantly feel their actual class. Which is something casters in particular can often struggle with.

If you are already importing the Soldier, it only makes sense to take its weapons as well.

If Numeria isn't a good enough justification to have one of these weapons, then reflavouring is always a thing. Repeating weapons definitely exist in the setting, as do weird magic guns. Combine the two or maybe throw in some alchemy.

Just because no PF2 book has given us the stats for them doesn't mean someone can't have a prototype or ancient relic lying around.

Yeah, I just don't see a future for the current design. Both the proficiency issue and the save issue.

I've lost track, but was the alternative of "attack roll, but use class DC-10" brought up yet? We know regular attack rolls are not an option, but that would get us the desired result without the messy side effects. Doesn't solve the proficiency issue, but that would be a start.

Not having looked at any discussion about the WW before, the quantum field being immovable (baseline) and having a lot of action costs associated with it immediately rubbed me the wrong way as well. The actual impact it has seems fine (well, except for the Precog).

I'm strictly against clogging up the action economy with anything not necessary and even more against convenience taxes.

The field fails on both fronts. My feedback so far will be:

1) That you can automatically move the field a certain distance when you sustain it.

2) Quantum Pulse and Quantum Transposition (? The 6th level feat that allows you to move the field) become baseline features.

3) Zone abilities become passive. You choose one when you create a new field and can change it with an action.

@Vampbyday - maybe this gets my argument across better:

I never said that targeting the moderate save is good, because it isn't.

Saves pretty much exactly map to the AC one category higher. So a moderate save is the equivalent of high AC. Something that is the highest that martials are typically expected to go up against. Targeting the moderate save is not "doing well", it is the bare minimum if you want to be effective at all.

That is the core problem of why casters in this system are often perceived as weak and not unreasonably so.

Aoe weapons face this same problem, but even worse, because the built-in "workaround" for casters isn't open to them.

Even if it wasn't currently so that 69% of SF2 creatures have reflex as their highest save. Even if it was the perfect "1/3 high, 1/3 moderate, 1/3 low" distribution. Then that would mean you are impotent against fully 1/3 of enemies, struggle against another 1/3 and are only good (or even great) against the last 1/3.

Imagine playing a Rogue or Swashbuckler, but instead of the occasional ghost or ooze ruining your day, it's a full third of all monsters you could theoretically go up against. And another third is resistant to precision damage as well. That is the current state of aoe weapons.

Grenades are simple weapons because they are intended to be used by everyone. That's all there is to it.

A STR Soldier with brutal and 12 HP would be very, very close to how strong it currently is. For most Soldiers it would basically be "add +1 to your Primary Target rolls and reduce your Fort save slightly". So it is not a stretch that they would add it.

Paizo not putting it into the Playtest has nothing to do with them not considering it. They explicitly ask us in the Soldier section if the Soldier should get a different key stat. It's also a playtest.

In a sense, the ranged meta is both of those things you mentioned at first. For one, everyone - including monsters - is assumed to have a ranged option, not having one is an exception. Such as with some wild beast enemies on an unsettled planet or in the vents of your ship.

On the other, ranged is considered to be the default form of combat. Options are usually revolving around it. Basically PF2 in reverse, but maybe not as extreme as might have been common there.

The rules for monsters will be almost completely unchanged from PF2. Basically, what changes is that enemy now get a good ranged attack - which will almost certainly extent to generally better damage than the PF2 book suggests - and that aoe damage will be more common. But that should be all in the advice sections, the actual math should be unchanged. Central elements such as AC, saves and HP will be identical. All of that is part of the "100% compatibility" promise as well - monsters are also compatible.

So yes-ish, individual ranged damage will go up. On both sides of the table. One obvious example would be casters typically using a gun to complement their spells. Otherwise the overall lower damage and higher AC - as you pointed out - would slow the game down substantially. But it is more tha "x does more damage now". It also means that features and feats that would be high-level, limited or such in PF2 are now possible and/or much cheaper.

But that doesn't mean that melee - as per the Solarian thing - is intended to be nerfed compared to the old system. Melee is the same as before, with a bit more movement and CC thrown in. It is just relatively weaker, because ranged combat has gotten better. So the Solarian quote still holds.

(I gotta go, I'll add my thoughts on combat flow later, sry ^^)

People keep saying Walking Armory just makes up for not investing in Strength but-

So what? I don't understand why that's a problem.

Like yeah they could switch the class to Str and remove the class features that fuel Con but...

They could also just not do that because that's what the class features are for.

Is this exact scenario really what class features are for?

As far as I am concerned, unique class features are supposed to add stuff to your class. Make them feels interesting, flavorful and competent.

Walking Armory does none of that, not even the flavor. The flavor is already done by other features. It is purely a mechanical bandaid, giving you back something you should already have. Utterly boring.

So I think the real question isn't "why should we change it", but rather "why should we keep it?"

And I just don't see a good reason why we should. The STR solution is simpler and makes the class much more functional.

Yeah, elemental damage runes have always completely broken the design philosophy that there shouldn't be too large a gap between two PCs that cover the same niche.

If you have two versions of the same character, one stacking damage runes and one not, then the former is categorically stronger. By a very significant margin. And one that is growing with every new rune. That will even be more true with SF2's ranged meta.

I'd much rather have them add the modular or versatile trait for their element.

I would like key STR and adjustments. The current setup is weird for several reasons, both mechanically and for story purposes. Several features purely only there to compensate for CON, DEX being mandatory for one of your core mechanics, and the average big beefy boy having a stat line that has more in common with a Rogue than another big boy.

My vote is for STR KAM, 12HP per level and a 1st level feature that adds the brutal trait to all aoe weapons. Done!

I haven't seen anything in the rules so far that answers this question, so that should definitely be addressed.

But the most sensible (and probable) answer is that you can still use it. It targets as many creatures as possible with the ammo you have left, going from the closest. If there are multiple viable targets, you get to choose.

Correct, this is a specific exception to the general rule of area weapons only being able to do area attacks. This just makes an additional, basic Strike against your primary target.

I mean, the actual point of the post is done, it's fine :D

Gods dammit, sometimes I really hate time zones and especially daylight savings time XD

But less than 24h... hype! (If I got that right XD)

Gobhaggo wrote:

WWHsmackdown wrote:

"may use strength" or "uses strength" as KAS? That wording is pretty vital on being able to make a switch hitting operative.

From another source on discord--STR as KAS

From a discord I'm on:

Quote:

Striker: Athletics + Athletics SF, Can choose Str as key attribute. [...]

And this stuff is exactly why I prefaced my statement with "if this is true" XD. At this point my takeaway is "don't trust previews or people with early copies, because they inevitably get some parts wrong".

Yeah, what I'm seeing so far is a slight blurring of the lines that is just all-around pretty neat ^^.

As for the rest we'll have to agree to disagree for now. Who knows what the playtest does with it, much less the inevitable mid-playtest changes or the final product.

Only slightly more than one week left... ahh, the wait is killing me XD

Welp, for some reason I have time right now, so here is part 2 - about the state of AoE weapons and caster stuff.

I'm of the opinion that, even provided they don't follow the frankly unusable rotolaser example, these weapons will be rather niche and situational by their very nature. This does not include stuff like grenades or single-use per fight rocket launchers or the Soldier, but strictly permanent automatic and area weapons.

Area weapons are pretty obvious, very few characters will give up their single-target capabilities. So they will be kept as weaker backup weapons (unless we get fundamental economy changes), if at all, given their extreme bulk.

Automatic fire weapons are more interesting to many characters. You still have a "normal" weapon and if the opportunity presents itself you can do some aoe. But they very much have the "small aoe" issue in an environment that is even less suited to them than PF2. You can also only target reflex saves. It can be quite decent, even though the damage is still just weapon damage, but how often will that actually play out? You aren't catching a lot of people with guns in a 20ft cone or 30ft line. And, depending on how much worse the weapon is to compensate for the automatic trait, how willing will people be to make that compromise?

There are just too many "ifs" and too low a practical ceiling for me to be seriously concerned about casters at this point. I get the concern, though.

I think the bigger takeaway for me is that at least automatic fire should be quite "cheap" in the weapon budget to encourage people to use it.

It'll be really interesting if the playtest changes any of this. Or maybe grenades and stuff will be the mainstay?

@WWHsmackdown - from a quick read through this:

From the direction we have seen so far, aoe attacks will likely be an option every round, not just once or twice per fight. Or at least close enough. Automatic fire was thankfully changed to not take half your ammo, but 1+ 1 per target. It looks like it will be a question of choice for everyone but the Soldier, not ability. How much of a choice in regards to your primary it remains to be seen, though.

But I'm right there with you, this is a perfectly thematic and mechanically ok ability for martials to get. If casters can occasionally have large bursts of single target damage far beyond any martial, then martials potentially having mediocre aoe options isn't a dealbreaker. Seeing as a higher prevalence of aoes was a goal of SF2 iirc, this works.

There might be some issues at low levels to work out, though. Aoe spells below level 5 can often be rather terrible and have weird +2 scaling. Haunting Hymn comes to mind.

---

As far as alternatives go, I'm still a big fan of the basic attack roll idea, rather than a basic save. To not reiterate too much from older posts - now you get the fun of rolling everything, it is quicker (especially if you do one roll for everyone), you are targeting AC and it neatly solves the proficiency problem. And since the Soldier gets legendary anyway, it doesn't matter that it does jack to solve the Commander issue.

I dont think SF2e is going to be particularly useful in terms of PF2e firearm balance, it's a more ranged focused game to begin with.

I'm rather 50/50 on that.

On the one hand, while I think PF2 ranged weapon and class design is far too conservative, they have a good reason for that. Because even this conservative version is very potent in the PF2 meta. As much as I like to throw shade at even the Gunslinger, it still works.

On the other hand, for now it seems the starting stats for the "standard" rifle in SF2 will be: 1d8F, 100ft range increments, 10 shots per reload, 2 bulk, 2 handed. I think that compares pretty well to the common PF2 bow options, maybe slightly more powerful, though far from an immediate dealbreaker. It might not be true for every gun and might change when the higher level versions come into play, but still.

I think the real problems only crop up when you combine SF2 guns with SF2 ranged classes. For example, a flurry ranger with that laser rifle would be pretty much business as usual. Same with an Investigator or Thaumaturge using a laser pistol. But the same rifle on an Operative with its Fighter accuracy and its innate damage booster and almost certainly more powerful ranged feats? Then it gets spicy.

I see. This is exactly why I regularly see people just leaving discussions with you, as demonstrated above. I'm out.

I might have missed the text in the book but having read through the swashbuckler, none of the Finishers have the attack trait.

The general text for them includes the rule that you cannot take any actions with the attack trait after you use an action with the finisher trait but there is nothing to say that finishers themselves have the attack trait.

I'm pretty sure from reading the other text that they are meant to as it talks about finishers being an attack but the trait itself is missing and there is no text about finisher's being a strike either.

That's completely normal. Stuff like finishers includes Strikes and such, which are attack actions. As you can't do part of the action, you can't do the finisher.

Operative is probably getting a significant rework in SF2e. A preview document showed that they will have 4+int starting skill proficiencies which is considerably less than PF2e rogue and there has been no mention of anything like the Operative's Edge class feature which was a huge culprit in them being the universal skill monkey.

I think the assumption is that Operative is being reconceptualized as a specialist class with a few niches they can fill and a solid single-target damage through their 'Aim' ability. Given that they are an 8HP class and start at expert with certain weapons, it's looking like they are a hybrid of Gunslinger/Rogue.

Pretty much, they are explicitly no longer a skill monkey, but a "skill specialist". The most important skill being apparently "killing you".

It definitely only gets the normal amount of standard skill "upgrades" as the vast bulk of classes. Instead the specialist parts seems to come from at least one feature called "specialized skill set". Presumably some variation of the PF2 Swashbuckler's "Stylish Tricks" - pick a skill of a small pool determined by your subclass, which you will get free upgrades and skill feats for.

Also according to the preview, it retains superior mobility.

And btw Teridax, holy **** you need to chill. Constantly assuming the worst of people and reading their replies in the most hostile light possible does not make for a good discussion...

For example - my reply about the kineticist is perfectly fine. You said it doesn't make thematic sense for Aang to carry a rotolaser. I merely said that that is extremely mechanically niche, downgrading your character, and implied that it was PF2 anyway, so can't be a consideration for SF2 balance. Aka, I reasonably consider this a non-issue for SF2.

And about level 19 - not with a single word did I ever mention that that is late for legendary DCs. What I explicitly said is that by then, pure proficiency and nothing else is far from enough to be top-tier. A statement I absolutely stand by.

What I also implied that in practice even in PF2 basically nobody spends significant time at levels 19 and 20. So why should an entire weapon category require fundamental adjustments around that?

When another SF2 class runs into this, the devs will keep it in mind, both thematically and mechanically. Again, how this affects PF2 options is explicitly not a concern. Trying to make it one isn't going to change anything. The Starfriends keep hammering the point home - compatible does not mean balanced. That extends to theme as well.

In regards to casters - they are much in the same boat as the Kineticist, they've got little use for simple aoe weapons. Using regular simple guns and grenades is perfectly fine as far as encouraging casters to engage with the arsenal goes, imo. More martial-leaning casters will find their ways as usual.

There is a playtest at the start of next year as well, details completely unknown. So there is still a chance, let's take it one at a time ^^

It was always a good class. Really didn't need like 6 separate buffs.

It was always an ok class, with lots of little and not so little problems. These buff look like they really make it shine, so I'm happy.

I'm pretty sure that with the update to automatic fire, that version of aoe weapons will stick around.

I have my own reservations concerning some of it, but PF2 overlap issues are very much not part of that. The concern is understandable, those are problems I will certainly face myself, but we can't make balance decisions based on that. The default assumption is that these are separate systems.

Now, that SF2 will get a class with legendary class DC is a whole other story. I'm still not sold that even a Soldier with only master DC would somehow be inferior to a class that just gets the better DC, not with 9 feats geared around this exact playstyle and additions from the chassis. The other guy is unlikely to have more than 1 or 2 feats and nothing but the DC from the chassis. As a very crude comparison, a level 16 Fighter without feats for his playstyle is going to be decent, but will get absolutely outclassed by most other martials who have a solid build going.

And all of this is assuming the Soldier doesn't get legendary, even if that is reasonable. But our look into the class was very brief and is confirmed to be massively out of date. So if any of this even matters on the class side, we won't know for another two weeks.

So I'd like to continue this when we have the full info.

As far as I am concerned, those examples very much count. The balancing of those weapons assumes those extra actions. When you get them for free in addition to doing something else, that is a gain just like anything else.

And Magus Spellstrike turns are 4 actions - 2 Cast a Spell, 1 Strike, and 1 extra (Recharge for sustainable Spellstrike turns). If you really want more action efficiency, you can even use Force Fang for 5 actions every turn in a normal fight.

For reactions you have more of a point, granted, but there are quite a few reactions that are close enough to not make a major difference or whose pure existence is enough. Fake Out is the best example of the former, with Nimble Doge not being too far off. Reactive Strike and its Fighter upgrades is an example for the latter. The Ranger's reaction is very much in the "too unreliable" camp outside of solo enemy fights.

RaptorJesues wrote:

Ryangwy wrote:

RaptorJesues wrote:

It is nice that barbarian got rid of almost all action economy tax for rage, just wish ranger got some love too instead of the almost nothing it actually received

I mean, Rage is budgeted as 1/encounter, Hunt Prey is budgeted at 1/enemy, that's a very different thing. The Ranger (especially the Outwit ranger) could use more Hunt Prey action compression feats than just Monster Hunter, but there's zero way they could get it for free like barbarians. Well, my barb player's going to be happy, at least ...

why not though, it needed it quite a bit more than the barbarian. It was like the main complaint people had with the class

??? It absolutely did not need it, Rangers have two very powerful lvl 1 action compression feats that are limited solely by needing to Hunt Prey. Barbarians get... Sudden Charge. I'm not going to say rangers didn't need anything but more action efficiency on the second most action efficient class in the game isn't it (monk is the first).

Ranger is faaaaar away from being the second most action efficient class in the game. No class that needs to repeatedly spend actions for its gimmick can be. Those two (stealable!) feats at most give you 4 actions per turn. Most of the time, they give you an "extra" action only every other turn.

There are a ton of (sub)classes that tend to get an effective 4 or more actions per turn reliably. Gunslinger with its extra action on reload, Starlit Span Magus with Spellstrike+Recharge, thrown builds with Quickdraw (that's usually even 5), just to name a few and without getting into reaction economy.

But that really doesn't matter much. What actually matters in this particular discussion is the effect those actions have as a whole. What does your turn actually accomplish? And for the Ranger, that has always been really mid at most, which is a Problem the Barb never had. Hence it is puzzling that Ranger wasn't updated to this extent.

AFAIK we have no idea yet.

Given that I'll be the forever GM for SF2, I can't do PCs, but I can do recurring NPCs.

One I am planning on introducing is an android weapon merchant. He was the "interface" of an old, abandoned military ship AI whose systems were finally giving up the ghost. So it transferred what it could into this much more limited body, most of it heavily compressed in archives, hoping to eventually get a new "proper" body. Turns out that isn't as easy as it sounds, so he is currently in the arms business (among other things) to raise revenue. His goal is to just have a new ship custom-made.

Another is a bodysnatching AI engram of an old war criminal. He puts lesser versions of himself into people's cyberware or robots and eventually takes them over. Heavily inspired by Gershwin from Eden & Echo (on Royalroad).

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Fort reaper 225 wrote:

Logan Banner wrote:

Heightened (+2) The damage increases by 1d4.

Is anyone else thinking that this scales quite poorly? 1d4 every 2 spell levels bounds up to practically nothing at most stages of the game...

For people to more reliably pick this i feel like changing the spirit damage to 1d6 base dice would be in order seeing as it is generally difficult to even keep the party within those 15 feet that the focus spell requires.

Cantrip damage thorns on one ally that is reactionary and unavoidable that is folded up into the ally gaining an AC PLUS you raising a shield ALL FOR ONE ACTION is some crazy value. It's essentially three actions of focus spell smooshed into one.

Does it actually affect only one ally? The wording is very weird. The second paragraph pretty much says it applies to all allies that are in the aura or enter it and even goes out of its way to remind you that you're not included yourself.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is supposed to work for everyone in your aura except you. The wording is just unfortunate.

In regards to more Starfinder core ancestries making it into a PF2 book in the forseeable future, I wouldn't place any hope on that. Not with the SF2 playtest starting in August.

Both Kasatha and SF2 Androids will have playable versions then. The only problem might be limited feat or heritage choices, as many of those will probably interact with things (e.g. computers) that are not present in a normal PF2 game. So it's a good news / bad news kind of situation.