Milo v3's page

I do think it is fair to "feel" like starfinder isn't complete when there isn't any sci fi classes yet. If you want to play a techy character or a science character in flavour currently, you'll probably need to go to pathfinder classes like Alchemist and Inventor to try and get that vibe across at present.

It's definitely a reality that it takes time for stuff to be written, tested, edited, layouts, art, etc. that goes into making a book. But I know I won't be running a full campaign of Starfinder 2e any time soon when a lot of the basic sci fi pitches simply aren't supported currently.

I don't feel like they need to replicate the 1e classes though. Archetypes are higher priority than something like Vanguard or Precog.

I feel like cinematic is the closest it's been, but has suffered from not giving players enough agency in the examples for me to want to use the system over just replacing the whole encounter with one or two skill rolls and just not having a system for starship combat in my games.

I really hope that whatever system they come to gives reasons to be doing different things each turn and have actual decisions get made.

It being an archetype means it is no longer a viable character concept for any game that starts at level 1, and yeah it does sound like the capabilities you get will be minor because archetypes tend to not have any budget.

I worry for another oozemorph situation.

Not sure how you play, but in general, I think there's a huge difference in opinions online based on how someone plays the game.

As context, my groups are both home groups who play lots of different games so generally will provide a description of the pitch for an adventure we'll be playing if we are going to play something.

Battle for Nova Rush is just one session long. If you wanted to try running Battle for Nova Rush, you could Just tell your players that they start as prisoners on a ship and have to get out. I played only knowing that, and came out thinking this is a great way to run starship encounters. When I read it after the game, I was shocked that it was only 5 pages long of game text. If it's not something that fits your group that's fine too.

For me it's a matter of "this isn't a 'starship combat encounter', it's 'encounters that happen on a starship'". It can be entertaining, but feels like I'd be setting false expectations to claim it's about a thing that isn't (in my eyes at least) a major part of the adventure.

If you tell people that an adventure is a great way to run heists, but the adventure is actually just the various complications that happened prior to the heist and some of the heist prep, while the heist itself is just a single abstracted roll... that isn't going to be seen an heist adventure to me and struggle to see how it'd work as a foundation for future heist adventures.

When you play the scenario, you FEEL like you're on a starship in the middle of combat. You're frantically doing things to affect that combat

The only elements of the adventure that are "doing things to affect that combat" seems to be

It might not be you cup of tea but if the opportunity presents itself I'd try and play in it. You might be pleasantly surprised by how much fun it is and how much it feels like you're in a Star Wars or Star Trek battle

I think if I tried to sell my players on a Starship fight adventure, but I'm the end included only one minute of interacting with anything outside of your own ship they'd feel disappointed by the end of it. They might still enjoy their time because starfinder is a fun game and we enjoy our fellows company, but the adventure itself will probably not be remembered as living up to the pitch.

Having given it a read now I cannot grasp why people would see this adventure as relevant when the only actual connection to Starship combat is the last rolls to see if you escape.

Battle for Nova Rush came out at Free RPG Day right before SF2e was launched. So it doesn't use the exact cinematic starship scenes, but you can see the influence, even though it doesn't use the CSS stat block. Instead of Star Wars, you're on the Millennium Falcon fighting off a group of TIE fighters, think of it as Star Trek, and you're the crew in a bigger ship while the ship is getting attacked.

Fair enough.

The current CSS in the GM Core are set up as simple examples that should last as long as a normal combat or a complex hazard to chase. While The Battle for Nova Rush expands that to take up an entire session.

The other nice thing about CSS is that it is defined per encounter, which means new rules for ship combat can be created and used on a per-encounter basis. An example is having a new NPC on board could give you new crew actions.

My issue is the CSS in GM Core would be whole scenes that my group would find it very repetitive and unengaging, since you don't really have any agency or decisions in those. So if that's design philosophy was expanded to a whole session I think my players would stay away from SF2e in the same way the PF2e playtest caused them to be apprehensive of PF2e for a good while.

Does Battle for Nova Rush use the gm core rules or something else? I found the gm core rules examples pretty agency-less and repetitive.

what do you think biohacking is Milo?

In the case of fantastical sci-fi of Starfinder, I see it as more "this chemical can give you claws" type stuff rather than 1es more internal style.

Perhaps a 2e biohacker could increase its focus on biohacking rather than pharmaceuticals

It feels unintended because they give them mechanics that at a glance only make sense for if they work like normal weapons. There is very little reason for them to be advanced when they don't use normal proficiency to begin with (I imagine the only thing would be for mechanics that can pick weapons to start with like investor) and something like Professional trait is non functional 90% of the time on them because that trait only affects attack rolls so only comes up with the soldier specific way of making attack rolls with area weapons.

It isn't particularly intuitive.

I know I was disappointed when I saw that one of the envoy subclasses in Starfinder gave Assurance (stealth) as it's associated benefit because of how useless I find Assurance outside of Athletics.

I feel like there is going to be a lot of potenital with the Awakened Animal ancestry in Starfinder, given how I imagine custom alien animals are going to be a lot more readily accepted in this game compared to PF where earth animals would be the assumption.

"Ah yes, I am playing an awakened Scaled-Gorrila from the planet Mordex."

Ah I see the issue. It says the minimum in one section where it puts forward the limit but not the other. Thankfully they're close but feels weird they doubled up saying that and forgot the minimum in one of them.

There's also the issue with things like environmental protections still being based on armour level, despite being given to androids without armour and when armour is level 0 for a quarter of the game.

exactly. Paizo stated several times that those rules would be in the Player Core release.. and yet here we are.

What paizo has actually said was that a simple subsystem for Starship combat would be in the GM Core, and that full complex Starship building stuff would be in a layer supplement that would likely have it's own separate playtest.

They had a seperate playtest this spring. They'll be in Tech Core, which comes out sometime next year. It's a weird split, but tech and mech proved to be difficult to design, and thus needed more time in the oven.

Though neither playtest class tied into any such stuff.

Saying Starfinder 2d has a ranged meta when compared to PF2e doesn't mean every encounter has to be a ranged combat.

I am not saying I want it every encounter to be ranged combat. I'm saying it's bad at being a ranged meta game when 95% of the opposition isn't ranged and that if I'm playing a game with a decent focus on ranged PCs, I want those PCs to actually be able to have shoot outs and using things like cover, rather than spending most of their time in melee.

That's harder to do if I have to homebrew most of the enemies just to have some ranged options.

It isn't a ranged meta if every enemy is 5 ft. away from you. Even if the whole party is using ranged weapons, the enemy & encounter design matters.

While it is a bummer to hear Alien Core isn't going to be as big as Monster Core, and hopefully we get a big book of NPCs relatively soon, I wouldn't say building monsters is all that difficult.

I found it a tonne slower than the starfinder 1e set up.

And there a whole bunch of PF2 monsters to be stolen and reskinned which also helps a great deal

I disagree. The main game has barely any ranged enemies, which doesn't work well if you're trying to make a starfinder game with ranged meta, large battlefields, and cover that matters.

I think the main lack in the launch is npc/monster support, so I'm abit disappointed to hear people in this thread saying the monster book will be smaller then most when the monster building system of PF2e seems a lot slower and less GM friendly then the alive archives system and that we are going to need to be using it a lot given how melee focused the existing monster pool is.

I know I'm currently unsure whether to playtest currently because I feel the data I provide won't be especially useful or representative.

The jailbreak might need to be broken to deal with the fact the base effect is mainly a self-debuff, so you're spending a whole class feat specifically on just a jailbreak that you wont be able to use very often.

Oh, so this book isn't meant to be a primer on the setting but more focused on adventure hooks?

Double deployment takes 3 actions if you use the 2 action version of deploy mines, and 2 actions if you use the 1 action version.

Two actions to do the 1 action deploy twice can already be done without the feat from my understanding? So would only exist as a three action if they followed that suggestion.

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.

Again, modifying spells is not tech-y to me anymore then it'd be gardening-y to me if they decided to flavour the class around plant-named things if it was a PF class and called Botanomancer.

As for specific examples for things that can enrich the fantasy, provide more options for overclocking style stuff than just the one you get from your subclass, have many more feats that tie into technology such as Ammo Infector and Root Virus rather than them being rare. Have spellshapes that leverage and engage with technology better then "I can spend an action to make an area spells use the worse radius of a grenade".

Especially at level 1 & 2 it'd be good to have some, as earliest you can get a tech tied feat is 4th level from what I can see, and that's a good amount of sessions not getting to actually fulfil the fantasy advertised anymore then playing a wizard/sorcerer/witchwarper/etc would.

Isn't talking with computer spirits more, idk psychic/medium, occult feeling thematically?

It's literally what the playtest says technomancers do.

DURING SOCIAL ENCOUNTERS...

You might enthusiastically babble about your topics of interest, speak only in cryptic
messages in your programming language, or simply ignore conversation in favor of
communing with computers or machine spirits in the area.

What exactly do you want the class to do?

Have stuff relating to technology. Actual technology.

Why do you feel like changing the parameters and effects of spells isn't like hacking?

1. For the same reason I don't consider a wizard of Experimental Spellshaping thesis to be a technomancer hacker.

I suppose all I can say is that if my player wanted to play a technomancer and came to me for direction, I probably wouldn't specifically direct them to the technomancer because it's not any better at providing that flavour then any other casting class in PF2e/SF2e.

To me, having metamagic != feeling techy. So I would like to see more support for playing a techno-mancer. Maybe take inspiration from the introduction section of the class and let them talk with computer spirits and stuff.

Taking away a characters spellbook or holy symbol in modern dnds is generally just considered "something you don't do", so this would mainly mean charging a feat for just flavour and 0 actual benefit at 99% of tables.

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?

They don't do much software-y stuff though? If you had a metamagic focused wizard who also sometimes enchants his robes to defend him, most would not call that a tech class.

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.

I think the text needs to be modified, since it seems you can't actually modify armour you're wearing or a weapon you are holding because of how the power works:

Interact to draw, retrieve, or swap an item, then add one of

the mods listed below to the item.

I assume that initial step is meant to be optional, but currently it's the thing that determines what item gets the mod applied to it.

If you are wearing the rig rather than holding it, yes.

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.

I imagine the issue is that "Use tech to enhance by combat abilities" may look too close to the inventor doing that with it's overdrive.

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 hope any "mod their own spells" is a free action. Spending a whole turn with my only action being cast 1 spell is hard to get hype for.

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.

I definitely hope that they don't assume every nanocyte player wants to be cloud obsessed. Felt very restrictive originally at higher levels that the class started running out of options that weren't tied to the cloud.

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.

Personally, I disagree. For me, the Animist reminds me of the Binder, as well as the preview Medium (as opposed to the released version, which I DID NOT LIKE).

I think you're also overlooking things like the Wandering class feats.

Wandering feats don't come into play until 6th level and that is going to be just 1 or two small things that might actually make you feel slightly like a binder, rather than much of an impact.

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.