Milo v3's page

I am saying you could just have a plant that sends out electrical spores that does the effects as Root Virus.

That would still be tech stuff. Doesn't matter how you flavour the "how" of that feat, you're using the combat hacking feat.

To some extent I think you just want the mechanic to be called a technomancer. The mechanic is really really cool, and does a lot of what you're asking for. To some extent we can call them a "technology kineticist"

Nope. I just want more tech in the technomancer class from the book called tech core. Wanting more support for tech tied stuff doesn't mean wanting the class to be completely replaced.

Me discussing how the metamagic isn't sufficient to make the class fulfil the fantasy for me, does not mean I want the whole class to be remade from the ground up. It just was me explaining why I don't find the metamagic sufficient for fulfilling the fantasy.

There is no benefit to you two making strawmen claiming I'm wanting the class to be kineticist or mechanic.

So you want a technology kineticist. No spells, just different feat/impulses they can take to influence technology.

I am fine with them being a spellcaster, I'm even fine with them being metamagic focused. I just want them to have more stuff that ties into technology so my players aren't disappointed and just go to a different class that is just as good at technomancy.

I do think a technology kineticist would be cool, but I don't think it'd be a very good use of space to recreate kineticist in Starfinder, especially one limited to a single element.

I get that you're saying "no, technomancer just means technology, they should have any other abilities that aren't related to technology that way if we are in low tech environment like a jungle or deserted asteroid they are useless."

I am fine with them having some other things, but I want Some technology stuff. All I want is for the class to have more that ties into technology. I am not demanding the class be useless outside of highly urbanized environemnts. I just want the class to be better at fulfilling the technomancer fantasy then wizard/witchwarper or an occult mystic (who can actually talk to computers).

It seems you peeps are thinking I'm asking for something far far far more severe then I am. I just want more parts of the class to tie into the pitch, so that it's better at it's fantasy then other casters. It's a more specialized class fantasy then "generic wizard", so let it have more tools for actually facilitating that fantasy, rather than just having powers with programming themed names.

This is not a thread of "The whole class must be rewritten from the ground up". That isn't happening, this is a playtest, the class has already reached a point of pretty heavy development. All I'm saying is that the class, does not fulfil the fantasy for me because it doesn't have much techno, it's mainly just mancy, so I'd like some more support for techno in the final class.

Doesn't overclock have the same issue as spellshapes?

Not if they increase the amount of times your character is engaging with pieces of technology.

Something that alters technology, is innately more technological then "I extend the range of my spell".

same with ammo infector and root virus.

Those two aability does the type of stuff I want because it has you actually hack technology. Not just flavour, it does the thing in a way that alters how the gameplay. If someone reflavoured it to be plant based for some reason, that wouldn't change that it is directly engaging with technological things. They'd still be hacking robots mid-fight and taking them over, which is technological stuff.

]Is it just that the spellshapes don't explicitly reference technology?

I want mechanically represented stuff. There is nothing that makes "My spells range longer" feel technological to me. While something that causes enemy armour to explode or for you to be able to commune with an enemies weapon to try and get them to leap out of their hands to disarm them or something, that'd be something you can point at and see directly that it is doing something technological in the world.

Milo V3, Is a wizard a pyromancer? Or a sorcerer? Only if you build them and their spells specifically for that. So yes, a Witch or a wizard using arcane spells and SF2e spells could be a "technomancer" but they wouldn't have the specialization that the official Technomancer has. The ability to, by understanding magic from a programmer's prespective, edit the code of their spells and modify them well beyond what any other magical practitioner can do.

It's likely that when released the Arcane spell list will have more technology related spells than the other spell lists.

You shouldn't need to "build your technomancer specifically for tech" to have some tech, anymore then only some barbarians getting to have rage or only some inventors getting to invent.

"they wouldn't have the specialization that the official Technomancer has." Except I am saying that currently, I do not feel that technomancer is providing any specialization over that of wizard/witchwarper/etc. That is literally the concept of the thread. That I would like it to have more stuff to actually make it a specialist of technomancy.

That if we got a pyromancer class, that it'd be good at pyromancy beyond just using the arcane spell list and seeing their spells through the lens of a flame that they use different fuels for to alter how it burns.

The metamagic is the tech. You're treating spells like software, like a program. The overclock thing is kind of tertiary imo. I think it just exists to jailbreak, but the fact the class has such a modular design to the gameplay is very tech-y. I know you and others said it's "just flavor" but so is enchanting robes as you mentioned. If I had to make a stab here it's that you, like myself, wanted more hardware focused stuff

So if the class was exactly the same, but used gardening words as the names for the metamagic then it'd fulfil the fantasy of being a botany-mancer fine despite having no real connection to botany or plants? At this point, mystical witchwarper would be an equally valid technomancer if you just said "oh they do their magic by hacking their magic".

Mystics have mechanics that represent them being connected to things beyond just how they flavour their casting. Witchwarpers are able to warp reality beyond just how they flavour their casting. Why can't technomancers have something to do with tech aside with their actual class features.

Don Draper yelling "That's what the money is for!" voice: That's what the prepared arcane spells are for!

So witches & wizards fit the bill just as much and would be valid technomancers for you without modification?

If witchwarper was prepared, would it be a technomancer?

Yeah I definitely don't intend this as a "the class should be renamed" thread, but more a "I feel like the class could do more to sell the fantasy that is pitched".

Technomancer was always a bit lacking in "technomancy", though, so I'm not hugely concerned

A lot of the technomancy that came from the technomancer spell list being tech themed spells doing a lot of the lifting. But Starfinder is not doing that, instead every tradition gets tech-spells because they're tradition based now. So the class cannot lean on the spell list anymore.

There doesn't really seem much techno- for you to do any mancy with outside of the overlock ability which seems more like enchanting then doing anything tech-y. The class names a lot of things with tech related words, but the fantasy seems abit lacking.

It's a spellhacker, but it doesn't seem to do technomancy.

People normally still sleep in most sci-fi, the game does not expect "rest for a day". It expects for some level of rest between days.

This isn't a matter of genre. Most fantasy games I run generally have time contstraints as well.

I do think 8 hours is optimistic though, and feel like 'daily-attrition' pacing mechanics are a poor fit for PF/SF style adventures to begin with.

I'm hoping technomancer ends up a wave-caster so it's class can afford to have a good amount of class abilities. Especially since techno-spells are just common things on the spell lists now. Everyone is healing via phones in Starfinder regardless of if they like that aesthetic, so just techy spells can't be the crux of their class idenity.

Animists are full casters and have a very strong identity. Same with Psychic. And Witch.

I think there's plenty of room for Necromancer to have a strong identity while being a full caster.

Animist is the first class that comes to my mind with "god I wish this wasn't a full caster" for this exact reason actually. The animist stuff basically just being a tiny selection of spells known that you can slightly swap around per day is just so underwhelming compared to what it could have been. The fantasy the classes flavour/pitch proposes is completely unfulfilled for me because of how the class can barely dedicate any of it's budget it's concept.

I don't want "spell list wearing a hat" and that's mainly what those are to me. Turns out when you design your spells system to be balanced around classes like Wizard & Sorcerer that barely have class features, you end up with spells having to be basically all of your class for full casters.

I hope Necromancer is a wave caster so it can afford to have actual class abilities. Casters don't seem to get much chance to have strong identities in 2e with how much of their potency is locked behind spell lists they share with others.

I'm abit disappointed with Animist. I like the flavour, but cleric who has slightly more flexibility with their spell list just isn't interesting enough for me. Was expecting something more flavourful and impactful like how Binders were or something.

I wish casting didn't eat up so much of PF2e class budgets so casters could have actual class features.

I would prefer it falling under Perception so that you didn't have 95% of PCs unable to use any vehicle in existence.

I mean, to be fair. Even 3D printing requires a bit of skill. That's why folks would consider going to a print shop to buy something at a market price, rather than learning to 3D print on their own, which in its own right, is a skill even if you're not designing the CAD files.

In starfinder's setting there are commonly public machines where you just select what you want to print with like a small set of level 0 and 1 items, and all you need to do is select the one you want to print then pour in the UPBs and wait.

While i think that Missiles and Grenades (and their launchers should have the are traitd) they still use Area Attacks which is often enough for your soldier abilities to work.

(I think they just forgot to add the traits.)

In addition to any feat that requires Area or Automatic trait, they also can't Suppressing Fire (requires a failed save), and can't use their bombard subclass they took (requires area trait). They could only use primary target and that is basically it for what they got from their class.

This is good playtest stuff to find. Try it out and let them know what is working and what is not. Also I think the way the advanced heavy weapons work is weird as written.

My player did not want to "try out" not being able to use any of their soldier feats, subclass, or the key suppressing fire feature. That is just going to make their experience awful.

The player shouldn't have to slog through sucking multiple encounters to prove "a lot of mechanics of the class don't work with this weapon" when that's a baseline rules interaction.

The soldier class doesn't work with the Missile Launcher weapon despite it strongly aligning with the fantasy and area-weapon style focus of the class. My player heard the soldier is the class for big weapons and area attacks, so after picking their class feats ended up spending their gear on a missile launcher only for me to then inform them that basically none of their classes powers work with it because of not having the area or automatic traits.

In Starfinder PC spell casters are just as common as they are in Pathfinder, but encountering magic in Starfinder is a lot less common.

That is the opposite of how the SF1e setting worked. Magic is everywhere and incorporated with technology frequently enough that it's mentioned as practically being involved in the manufacture of nearly every object. The mage specifically talks about how magic is more accessible than it has ever been in SF.

And it's up

Seeing all the calls for new species/ancestries, the thought that immediately occurred to me was "how many competing species can we cram into a finite space?" I realize this is fantasy, but I can only suspend my disbelief so far.

People aren't even calling for new species/ancestries. They're calling for the existing ones.

But yeah the near infinite reaches of space and the planes have a lot of different species in it in a space opera rpg. This is very common to the genre of media Starfinder draws upon. Star Wars, Star Trek, Farscape, etc.

This makes me wonder what is the new key stat of solarian?

Mentioned in the blogpost, strength.

I agree, I was stretching for Vanguard to fit in the magic book. And a new class would be AWESOME they did that for PF2e, so why not with SF2e?

What about a Primal caster? "The Terraformer" with some flavor text about not being sure if he is using magic, or technology or both." But what kind of mechanical signature would they have? Obviously battlefield control focused.

I feel like that'd be a very cool angle for a primal witchwarper. Assuming witchwarpers are still focused around altering the areas around them.

I can definitely imagine the Alchemist existing as making it a tailored SF Class lower priority than other SF1e classes.

I imagine a doctor with magic wouldn't fulfil their desire for a conventional medical doctor. Envoy with Battle Medicine is going to be my guess if you want pure SF 2e for the concept.

I will say though that I do wonder how impactful these encounter considerations will be to groups that don't play official adventures. How much guidance and reinforcement of encounter-design paradigms will end up in the books themselves?

I am personally very pleased that they decided to make the game actually work at their stated aims, rather than unbalancing it within the first two seconds by making the guns far better than pathfinder weapons for no actual benefit to gameplay for starfinder or pathfinder.

It doesn't say "choose each time you taunt" or "when you taunt, choose" so I definitely read it as a character creation level choice.

I don't think so. It looks like SF2 will continue the "ranged combat is cool now" angle pretty heavily. It doesn't take in-depth guidance rules for a GM - even a new one - that when most of your PCs want to use their awesome new guns, then building most maps as tunnel fights or cqc urban combat will probably not go over well.

If it is just implied rather than actually giving advice and instruction, then no, most gms (especially new gms) will continue to design their dungeons the same as they do for the other D&Ds.

The idea that we need to remove species like Kalo from the game because "gas needs to matter" is ridiculous. Tfw space suits existing is considered too broken for a space opera rpg.

Are gas dangers really that crucial to people's plotlines?

I definitely find the mention of "every product will have at least one new ancestry" interesting.

The vesk feats look very focused on one very particular style of character. I worry this is going to be abit too mono-culture and restrictive.

I might have to just allow all starfinder characters to be able to take human feats or something.

Oh, can you link to where a Paizo source mentioned they would be compatible enough to use classes from PF2e in SF2e? I hadn't seen that.

The field tests themselves talk about it, as does starfinderplaytest/faq.

My understanding was that they had stated the meta-state of the games were going to be very different, which would lead to things like ancestries with flying at early levels, and classes with universal proficiency in ranged weapons that deal energy damage, and weapons that deal AOE damage. All of which would throw the power balance of a paty way out of wack from the current PF2e meta.

Things like flight isn't a math change (and PF2e technically already has flight at level 1 options). High access to ranged energy damage is also not a major shift, cantrips exist. Weapons that deal out AoE damage will exist, but from what we've seen they aim to still keep their output controlled so that it fits with the rest of the game.

On what is this certainty based? I mean, we've barely seen anything, the first 5 levels of a couple of classes, an a couple of monsters and items. While it's going to use the same "game engine" as Pathfinder 2e, that doesn't mean all the numbers will be the same.

They have said that it's going to be same game engine to the degree you can use PF2e ancestries, classes, and monsters in SF fine. The core math is going to be the same.

I don't think I'd play in a mixed level party of SF let alone PF/SF2e where level disparities are even more severe.

iirc, somewhere in those rules it mentions some rules that only apply to thrown weapons but lacks any means to make thrown weapon. So part of me wonders if the section was shortened and had wordcount cut.

That's very odd, there used to be an errata note that did state they had 4+Int but you are correct in that it is not currently present.

I can only assume it was accidentally removed.

It's worth mentioning that techno-magic doesn't seem to be tied to technomancer in 2e. It isn't a core class, instead it seems they are making it so anyone can do techno-themed magic. Like how any caster of appropriate tradition can do magic ring tone spells or the new doom scroll spell.

Not sure why you would be thinking about a 3e so early.

There isn't much to be gained by trying to intentionally make futuristic weapons overpowered, especially since this is going to be a game where people do still stab each other with swords and where there are still t-rex style aliens to punch.

I just want to know if Starfinder 2e will have shotguns, l'm a big fan of them.

There were shotguns in the first Field Test document for starfinder 2e.

Aren't universal translators dirt cheap, if not given out to people like candies?

The opposite, they basically don't exist.

Tech Revolution has a whole page dedicated to explaining the problems, limitations, and difficulties with translation tech in the starfinder setting.

Ended up making the skeleton of a dead harvest god as a 10th level exemplar. He of course wields a +1 Striking Ghost-Touch Scythe and is in +1 Gliding Armoured Cloak.

50 ft. speed and loads of athletics feats so that you cannot escape death. His scythe leaves cursed bone fragments within his enemies preventing them from healing, he can 1/day decide that a person who dies actually doesn't, can burry his enemies beneath the earth, intimidates with just a look, is resistant to most forms of damage except blundgeoning but can make himself have resistance to blundgeoning and when he focuses on making himself so invulnerable he ends up causing people to remember their dead or forces them to contemplate their own death, if you do hit his weak point to ignore his damage resistance he just collapses into bones to negate the crit, can instinctively divine omens about those around him, and can grapple & trip even the largest foes. I also gave him that jar of infinite sand magic item that I think I'll reflavour as an hourglass of infinite sand.

- A Moment Unending (Gaze Sharp as Steel ikon) doesn't really seem to be a very beneficial ability. Using an action to hope you get to use a reaction is kind of awkward, particularly because it's a Transcend ability and you have to spend an action on your NEXT turn to put your spark somewhere.

Transcend abilities automatically immedaitely put your spark somewhere, you don't need to spend an extra action on that.

They have actually said what they are willing to change and what they aren't willing to change in the FAQ.

The playtest is going to focus on what we see as being key components to Starfinder. Since we’re going to be fully compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition, the base game engine is tried and tested. This leaves us free to focus on a few critical elements: classes, an item level-based equipment system, new core skills, updated relevant rules across the game, and a general testing of the gameplay experience. All of this, along with the usual stable of new ancestries, feats, spells, and more!

My first idea for an Exemplar is actually a starfinder pc. Archeologist who specializes in the Gap comes across the tomb of a god that died during the gap and becomes empowered.

There is literally a background in this game called Chosen One.

But that isn't even what Examplar is, Oracle is closer to that at this point. Exemplars sound like they get their power from a dead god's corpse unless I've been misinformed.

Getting divine power from a god corpse isn't anymore "OMG I'm the main character" than "Personally cursed by the gods with divine power" is.

Exemplar isn't anymore main character syndrome than any of the other hundred ways your character gained special powers like oracle and sorcerer.

Looking forward to the Exemplar, magical martials that manifest their magic beyond spell slots is my favourite type of class.

The ONLY reason I'm not for the various dichotmies (which are really cool and creative by the way) is the class name "Solarion" indicating it should be about a star.

It is. It just doesn't stop being about stars just because they die.

Based on the new iconic, it looks like they're moving away from the monastic aesthetics and leaning into the charisma focus. They're a cyborg cat with sunnies & jacket, who fights via finger guns.

Is unfortunate that such things will likely be standard in Paizo products going forward. Made port of call's location art really ugly.

I don't think anyone was arguing for "maintanence" to be the only thing an engineer/mechanic style class does lol.