Peat's page

On its face, Outwit reads as the most non-combat/skill centric of the paths which isn’t a bad thing to have options. That said, any interesting interactions with other Feats that folks have found beyond the obvious bonus to Monster Hunter chain to get it in the ballpark of the dual wield path (seems more well-balanced against the precision damage path trading damage for utility)

My whip-wielding Dex Ranger certainly hopes so ;)

Mechanically it reads like it’s per creature/prey so you have to make each time even against different creatures of the same type.

Flavor wise, maybe you’re not identifying just based on ancestry but even more detail than that (represented by it needing to be a Critical success rather than normal)

So less of ‘Goblins are scared of howling creatures’ and more ‘That goblin has feathers in their armor, it means they fight like a berserker and swing wildly’.

Just a thought/justification.

But why wouldn’t they just say “every check that has the Attack Trait is an Attack Roll” if that’s what they meant? Seems a strange omission or choice to tangentially cross-reference or make you use transititive logic to figure it out rather than stating it. But we’re all only human :)

An action with the attack trait would be an attack action. That's how the tags work.

Does that mean an action with the Concentrate Trait a Concentrate roll? Or a Fortune Trait is a Fortune roll? The part that throws me off is this line on 446:

Every check that has the attack trait counts toward your multiple attack penalty, including Strikes, spell attack rolls, certain skill actions like Shove, and many others.

Rather than defining Shove as an Attack Action they call it a Skill Action, implying difference?

It’s one possible interpretation but it’s far from established fact in my reading. The only thing we have to go off of was the one off hand comment made during Playtest which is more general philosophy than hard ruling.

RAW it’s Uncommon rarity. So a player can pick up whatever feat they want to munchkin, but it doesn’t mean they can start with one without GM permission. So likely will be restricted in PFS and if you don’t want one at your table because it feels cheesy, say No.

Have them roll a check using d20 + master level as stated in the rules and compare that to whatever DC you think is reasonable (using Acrobatics or Athletics DCs as a guide.)

If it’s not fun, don’t use it. As stated above it’s engaging for some players and some characters (pack rat compulsive gnome with a place for every last crumb)

As far as “RAW means we have to in PFS” how many Society GMs were checking carrying capacity or ammo in 1e? For me it’s been very few and far between although YMMV.

The other difference is Cha-based checks are one of the only times you are directly performing the action your character is, so failure feels more ‘unfair’.

When I roll a miss with my sword, I didn’t actually swing a sword so I can easily accept the abstract miss. When I make what I feel is a compelling or cinematic threat/argument, I envision it happening exactly like I performed it, not how the abstract of my characters stats and proficiencies would have. So there is some dissonance there.

Certainly will vary by table, but adding significant bonuses or auto success if it’s what would make sense in the story and world is a way around this.

Agree that for formal “roll for init” encounter mode there is no reason for a familiar to have attacks and it helps balance familiar va companion. Anything flavor-wise you want the familiar to do can use the RAW “bonus equal to your level” on the roll. If you want your animal to be relevant enough in combat that it gets standard attack/damage there are a number of options for that.

Please cancel my subscription. Just released it was still trying to charge an old CC from years ago. I understand I'll lose the discount on the previous PDFs that I did not receive.

Session 1

The Nightmare:
I was focused on misdirecting the players (maybe a bit too focused, see below) on thinking the opening scene was real. I rewrote a bit of the read-aloud text to imply they had just escaped from the asylum they all knew from the Player's Guide they started in. I also used it as an opportunity to potentially foreshadow what happened to their memories in Book Three: "You all are dripping wet as rain falls in sheets from a deep black sky, but your eyes are focused on the path in front of you. You hasten your pace to a jog, moving away from the fortress of deep amber sandstone and glass towers that you can feel looming behind you. Every fiber of your being screams that you dare not look back." Both the dripping wet and the sand (which I described in more detail when one of them of course decided to look back) being allusions to the Oasis. Other than that, I ran it mostly as written, with them ending up running through an abandoned open-air market where the stalls kept getting more and more densely packed as they continued, by the end describing it as if they were crawling through a thick jungle.

How the players reacted:
I was convinced one of them would charge into the mist immediately upon hearing footsteps. Perhaps it was the ominous music or playing by candlelight, but they all ran for quite some time. A few failed skill checks climbing through the market later, and only the Gunslinger was still alive. When I revealed the full 'Wake Up! Save Me!' message, he said "Ohhhhhhhh, okay!" put his gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger. I described the Tatterman beginning to flay him as his consciousness faded. Definitely an extremely memorable and flavorful way to start the campaign.

Anything I would change?:
It dragged on a bit too long in my eyes. In trying to make it seem more 'real' in the early stages, I had the Tatterman making attack rolls as normal until the first PC fell, throwing in extra attacks here and there, but still playing with his actual to-hit and damage numbers. Even without armor, a couple PCs were hard to hit, so it took about 5 rounds before someone died (at which point they figured there was no way they actually died so this must be a dream, and I quickly butchered the rest of them.) The cadence I was hoping for of 'one death per round' got stretched to probably an 8 round encounter. Players seemed engaged, and it ended with a Bang...so overall went well.

The Prison Cells and Furnace
Ran this pretty much by the book, two PCs in each cell. Ultimately the cell with the Oracle and Gunslinger goaded the Doppelganger into Grapple range, while the Paladin got a nat 20 on their Strength check, which I ruled allowed them to bend the frame of the door enough that the next round they could take a Full Round action to wrench it open enough for the Goblin to Escape Artist out. After that, they got their belongings (including the Masterwork Viol) and used the Body Pile to climb up the chute (two of them getting Filth Fever in the process.)

How the players reacted:
They took a moment in their cells to get their bearings and asked a bunch of questions about themselves. I had them open their 'backstory' envelopes at this point (see the post about Session 0 above), describing how they woke on the stone floor and a bit about their state of mind, which gave it a very ominous overtone as everyone tried to feel each other out. After that, they quickly began working together to get out.

Anything I did/would change?:
No. Two major highlights were the doppelganger eventually getting annoyed with the Oracle's constant questions and morphing into her, and when I had the Doppelganger Coup de Grace the restrained orderly. Audible gasp at the table when she drove the shard of glass through his throat (since I think everyone was assuming you'd free him and he'd be your first quest giver.) Very much drove home the point that this will be a brutal and potentially brief adventure as they were left alone at the end of the fight.

The Barricade and the first Hallway:
The Scalding Rain was effective to get them indoors to B2 rather than start digging through the rubble to the north of B1 (and miss the barricade/survivors) which is what they started doing when they first arrived. After arriving at B2, the party talked to the group at the barricade, cleared the Dire Rats/Zoog (the Zoog fled down a burst pipe after getting an attack in, wanted to use him again!) and Centipede room in that order (which was a nice break and confidence boost after the tough Doppelganger fight with no weapons) and then found the Doppelganger corpses in B11.

How the players reacted:
It was a challenge to convince the characters to go fight another Doppelganger without it feeling like a "MMO Quest" (Bring me three Doppelganger heads!) especially after they were so beat up after the first one (Oracle had used 2 of 3 spells on CLW, and most were still below half health). Playing up the 'We all want to live, lets build trust amongst each other' angle, I had the Captain retrieve the parcel from the Chaplain's office, using the potions/wand as a peace offering and some much-needed healing to build confidence for a bit more adventuring.

Anything I did/would change?:
I'm happy with how things turned out, but required a lot of on-the-fly updates to make sure we didn't have a Session 1 TPK. I changed a fair amount with the initial quest from the survivors (only asked for one Doppelganger corpse, had the Doctor guarding the corpses in the Staff Office B11 be in a different room (added another to the map, north of B13 where she was bringing the samples to dry) at the time. I was pretty sure I'd TPK them if they had to fight another Doppelganger, so be very careful at that point in my opinion. Even the Bleed from the Zoog was almost too much and caused them to panic after four failed Heal checks.

Session 1 ended with them bringing two severed Doppelganger heads back to the barricade, and being allowed entry (but still at crossbow-point) as the Captain went to get Winter.

Forward:
Strange Aeons is the fifth Paizo AP I've run, and one of the best aspects of running that type of pre-published material is the awesome community who shares their lessons learned and tweaks. For Strange Aeons, I'm going to try to pay it forward in the hopes that I can offer someone in the future some insight or idea to give their table a better experience. I'll be writing up my own summaries of each major 'scene' including what I changed, how my players reacted, what went well and what I would change a second time around.

My Table and Session 0:
We play every other week for 4-6 hours with 4 PCs. We did 20-Point Point Buy (instead of standard 15-point), all Paizo-official Class material open, but races limited to Core, Goblins, Orcs, Changelings and Dhampries (a mix of Ustalav-centric races, and more monstrous races that might have been good muscle for their past employer.) Idea behind 20-point point buy was to allow them not to feel as restricted about taking 'bad' class features in the interest of RP (We have a Waves Oracle and a switch-hitting Gunslinger with 14 Strength and a penchant for Crowbars for example) and also since it seems like this AP has a uniquely-strong hook to the original PCs so wanted to give them a little more early-game strength.

In the interests of intensifying the blank slate 'fugue' for my players, I had each one of them come up with four Defining Events in a Character's life. I told them their character would have two or those events in their past, and two of them would be randomly assigned to another character. In that way, both the Player and the Character would be thinking about those events during the game, trying to piece together which of their four they kept, and which were assigned to others (i.e. which of their hazy memories and recollections were real and which were misremembered or unrelated).

Given the theme of the AP and knowing they started in an Asylum, the Players took this in a somewhat dark direction. Examples include "Sustained a serious injury trying to protect someone they didn’t know from a mugging" "Watching your father and uncles kill, skin and dress wild game has stuck with you and you think about it often " and "I'm the first person in my family to leave our town since it was founded". I tried to steer people towards objectively-described events, rather than declaring how someone felt about that event, to still give the person who ultimately received it the final say over their character. For example, being the first person to leave your town could be exciting...it could be terrifying...you could have been leaving for a big city job, or leaving because you were exiled...

Once I scrambled the between the players and spoke with them a little about what type of personality they were planning to portray, I fit the four events for each player together in a rough backstory outline only I knew. I wrote a short (around half a page) summary of what the character felt and remembered immediately upon waking up (with a few choice details from the backstories included) put them in envelopes, and gave them to the Players at the very start of Session 1, to be opened after the nightmare introduction. I also assigned them one of the Traits from the Player's Guide based on the combined backstory (they only picked one trait at character creation).

Our party includes:

• *A Varisian Human Gunslinger, modeled loosely after The Joker. Not murderously psychotic, but certainly unpredictable and with a disconnected "I bet we are all still dreaming, none of this matters" nonchalance.

• *A Varisian Paladin of Sarenrae. The player told me they wanted to be confused, conflicted and guilt-ridden about their past. In pursuing that, I made it so when the character awoke, they found that there was a terrible and painful burn wound across their back, in the shape of Sarenrae's angel wings. However, they also found a holy symbol of Norgorber amongst their belongings when they found their equipment.

• *A Changeling Oracle. I assigned her the Trait where she's "seen it all" and isn't phased by these creatures, based on the fact that one of the random Defining Events she received had to do with previous exposure to Elder Mythos creatures on a mining expedition. At this point a few sessions in, she seems more concerned with the Paladin she saw pick up an idol of Norgorber than she is the Zoogs and Dopelgangers.

• *A Goblin Alchemist. This was another one where they player told me they were looking for something specific - in this case the character is convinced that he is in the wrong body, that he was a prestigious scholar and chemist was somehow mind-swapped into a Goblin in some cosmic injustice. I assigned them the 'Yith' mindswap Trait bonus mechanically, although it remains to be seen if it was a Yith or something else...

How the players reacted:
Several sessions in and I'm very excited by how this turned out. Scraps of information about their past are treasured as much as equipment as they try to (both in character and out of character) figure out which of their 'hazy' memories of the four Defining Events they wrote are true. I think the best thing is it has added a very cool element of mystery that doesn't just rely on the players RPing forgetting their backstories (which can be challenging for some) and even our less strong RPers are talking in character more and narrating little events to show who they think they are.

Anything I would change?:
Nothing at this point, will see how things continue to progress.

My Players are in the midst of character creation right now, and I took a different spin on background drawing from a few snippets I've picked up from forums and podcasts about the AP:

I'm having each player write four 'cornerstone' (tip of the White Hat to Westworld) events for a PC's life and submit them to me directly without sharing their contents with the other players. The guidance that I'm providing is ideally these are seminal events in a PC's life, but ones that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. As an example: "I was the first person to leave my village in a hundred years." A pretty large event in a person's life, but leaves a lot of room for interpretation (Why did they leave? How did they feel about leaving? Did more people leave after? Did they come back?)

Each PC's backstory will be made up of two of the events THEIR player wrote, and two events ANOTHER player wrote. I'm working with each one of them on making sure if there's a very strong theme that they are targeting for their character/class, we can line up either their 2 known or 2 unknown cornerstone events in a way that will support that, but being light on the exact details. I'll then be assigning the Campaign Trait that most closely corresponds to that character's combination of Cornerstones to them during the first session along with a brief overview of what they do and dont remember of their history.

My goal is that this adds another layer to the fugue and helps simulate the guidance that 'You only have hazy memories of the time before 5 years ago.' As hints and clues come up throughout the campaign, players can piece together which pieces of their backstory THEY wrote (and therefore have a decent idea on) and which pieces are more completely lost memories they have to reconstruct themselves (since someone else wrote that entry.)

It also gives the players an opportunity to help each other recall lost memories (since they had been friends for a long time before the campaign) and have some unique RP experiences. If I as a PC wrote a memory that "Your sister is your best and only friend" and then someone in my party finds a picture of themselves and a woman in Thrushmore, I can say "I vaguely remember you describing your sister as having short brown hair and green robes like the woman in that painting at a Tavern one time..." Although they also couldn't be sure that the hint was referencing their Cornerstone and wasn't a red herring.

Interested if anyone else has tried something like this, or other alternate ways of background generation for amnesiacs.

***MAJOR Spoilers for BOTH Ustalav adventure paths below, careful if you plan to play either Strange Aeons or Carrion Crown***

A few years ago, I ran Carrion Crown for my group, which was the first time we made it all the way through a full 6 Volume AP, and had a blast. After a couple other excursions to Cheliax, we're back in Ustalav for Strange Aeons. But as I read through the books, I can't help but feel some strong similarities from the Big Bad perspective - a maniacal and egotistical wealthy mastermind who's not much of a combat threat on his own terms, but is always one step out of reach of a direct confrontation until he activates Armageddon. Granted that's a somewhat common trope of Fantasy, but given the similar setting it hit a little too close to CC for my tastes.

I started brainstorming how I could differentiate it a bit - not to the point where I'm going to abandon the 'chase-style' plot line, but to at least make the villain a bit different.

My thoughts are along the lines of the following, but if anyone else has gone through a similar exercise, I'm very curious!!

Lowls has been dead (if not physically, mentally/spiritually) since he left town at the start of the AP. He certainly was not a good guy (as evidenced by keeping slaves and ruling his lands with an iron fist) but things took a significant turn after he went to the Dreamlands. It was not just a coincidence that the Yellow King fragment which broke off from his journey to the Mad Poet is aloof but overall friendly - Xhamen-Dor purposefully ripped the innocent intellectual curiosity away from Lowls and left it locked in the Dreamlands, leaving a massive void for Xhamen-Dor to fill and leaving the Egotistical and Fearful sides of Lowls remaining.

While the AP references a 'seed' infesting Lowls, and by the end referencing them as a 'merger', I'm going to make it a bit more direct, adding a couple of points (and some heavy foreshadowing/hints) where the PCs can perform the Dream Ritual again and go to other places in the Dreamlands where Xhamen-Dor ripped the other two 'facets' of Lowl's mind asunder. Perhaps the Egotistical/Power Hungry shard can be encountered in the Mystereum, while maybe the Fearful (Why gather power if you're not afraid of something you need to be powerful against?) side was left in the Parchlands at the end of Book 4 to whither in agony forever.

By the end of the arc, I feel this makes Lowls' tale into more of a tragedy than someone who just was power-hungry (and conveniently out of reach) for 5 books of the AP and then was consumed. And while I might need to more heavily introduce the link between Xhamen-Dor and the PCs earlier to keep them motivated to stay on the hunt after they find the last 'fragment' of Lowls, I feel it gives the through-line of the villain enough of a different feeling to to our old friend Adivion Adrissant, who also spent 5 books just out of reach before merging with something to become a super-BBEG in Book 6.

Thoughts? Other watchpoints? (I've only skimmed the books and haven't started playing yet, so may be missing details) Other ways you've tackled this problem (whether or not you played CC?)

Overcharge is actually BETTER in my opinion if you have a combat-heavy group. The fact that you can boost your damage with a Standard AND boost an adjacent ally with a Move (or boost two allies with double-move) means you're doubling the effectiveness of the ability each round. If you have a lot of available allies to use as targets, you can take advantage a lot more frequently.

Two people having Computers is not a bad thing, especially since Exocortex can make those checks in some ways the Technomancer couldn't (being able to do it at range, do it while still attacking, etc.) You could also look at some of the other more Engineering-focused skills/tricks.

One final note about the Operative damage - don't forget that Small Arms only gets half-level to Weapon Specialization, so it's even more stunted in terms of damage before you add Trick Attack. Overcharge Exocortex can absolutely keep up or exceed Operative on combat.

I think you're right TheGoofyGE3K, and as a GM I love it.

So many times at mid-level Pathfinder, it takes me longer to fully digest all the options a monster has than it does for the PCs to get into position and Full Attack it to death. I'm lucky if it gets to use its cool thing.

I'd much rather have a little back-and-forth, or get to use/see the NPCs execute their strategy rather than 'It fails its save, it takes 150 damage from Full Attack, it dies.'

baggageboy wrote:

You can't put a merciful fusion on a level 1 weapon as it is a level 2 fusion...

You can if it's a Fusion Seal, they work backwards from ordinary Fusions (for some reason).

I think you might be misunderstanding.

A) A Fusion Seal costs 110% of the MAXIMUM weapon it could affect. So if you buy the lowest level possible Fusion Seal (Level 2), it's going to cost 360*110% credits. It costs more than a normal Level 2 Fusion, not less.

B) In the Fusion Seals section it states "A fusion seal can't be added to a weapon if doing so would cause the weapon's total level of fusions (including the level of the fusion seal) to exceed the item level." Which means you can't add a level 2 Fusion Seal to a level 1 weapon. That would prevent it from being added to a Laser Rifle.

Uhm...

If you are taking Heavy Armor you absolutely want to have a 20 dex by level 20. The maximium dex applied to KAC/EAC at level 20 is +5, hence you want a 20 by 20 to keep your EAC/KAC up.

You... You haven't actually played much Starfinder have you?

I have to ask because these are questions you'll understand more once you get into the game.

I haven't, you're right. I'd love to be able to play more.

My character is a melee Drone Mechanic. I took Dwarf to save myself two feats with their Racial ability, chose Heavy Armor as my level 1 feat. I chose to use a starting array of 14/10/12/16/13/8.

It was a tough choice. I had to decide to have a lower-than-ideal AC (No +2 Dex Mod to make optimal use of Heavy Armor at low levels, and Reflex saves will be rough), lower-than-ideal Strength (14 is already pushing it for a 3/4 BAB Class) or lower-than-ideal Skills/DCs (Which would block off some parts of my Class Mechanic Tricks and cause me to fall behind the Operative in Engineering? No way!)

I went with the Dex lowered, and I have suboptimal AC. And my character still feels playable (I hope! Only level 2! Maybe that makes me an idiot because I'm a melee class with 2 lower AC than optimal so now I'm dead.)

But I'm excited because even though my AC and To Hit is lower than many other builds I could rattle off, I do great damage compared to Ranged classes, frequently get extra attacks from my Drone to balance out a 3/4 BAB, and still maintain good Resolve. I have some weaknesses and some strengths that I chose.

To me, this all sounds very familiar to many of the conversations above...decisions I had to make because I couldn't be the best at everything. That's what's INTERESTING to me. That there isn't one array that says "You solved the math problem, here's the best array, never pick anything else again or you're a noob."

You're choosing To-Hit or Damage or DCs on your abilities...Saves or Skill Points...Having Revelations or generally worse class abilities like Gear Boosts/Fighting Styles.

As I've continued to say, other classes make the same tough choices, and have to be suboptimal in some places to be optimal in others. Solarian is not unique in that.

HWalsh, you're growing increasingly aggressive towards me and others in your posts, so before you tell me to 'get a clue' or tell me again I just don't understand and should come back when I've played more I'm going to move on. I've said my bit, and already spent too much time arguing on the Internet ;)

I'd just encourage anyone who is feeling down about their class of choice and always seeing a place where another class is better than yours to flip the script: Look at the same build that's getting you down, and look at all the places where your build gets more feats, has better abilities, or does more damage. There are always differences going both ways.

Otherwise it's going to be a long few months waiting for that next Rulebook.

Dont forget you can also use it as a Standard Action for yourself and a Move Action for an adjacent Ally. Adding an extra 1d6 to yourself and 1d6 to your Soldier or Drone friend at level 2 is nice. In addition up until level 10, weapons are also only increasing by 1 dice, so even if you only use 1 trick on it, it's basically improving your weapon by one tier.

You think Solarians don't have feat taxes?

Solarians have to take heavy armor to melee because they can't hyper pump Dex and Strength. If they go ranged they have to take Longarm proficiency and variable/weapon specialization as well.

If you're taking Heavy Armor, then you dont have to have 20 Dex.

Worried about your Reflex save? As stated above, the Reflex Save is the least necessary save because it almost exclusively deals in damage.

If you're going Ranged, suddenly you don't need to worry about pumping Strength, which seems to be a big point of contention. You're back down to pumping Dex and Key Stat like every other non-Soldier class.

At this point it seems like sacrifices any other class has to make aren't a big deal...Mystic has 13 Reflex or -1 To Hit compared to a Solarian? Soldier does 10 less damage per hit than Solarian? That's close enough.

A Solarian has 13 Reflex or -2 To Hit compared to a Soldier? That's an unacceptable choice that takes a character too far from an optimal value, and Solarian has serious problems which need to be addressed by Paizo.

Diving deep into Solarian (as the forums have basically forced me to do since launch given all the threads/guides/claims that true Solarians should start Blitz soldier :P) has been interesting from a perspective of game design and class comparison. I'd encourage you to take a break from Solarian for a bit and do some deep diving and building of your own on another class. I think you may be surprised at how many tough choices other classes make. It may not be readily apparent just comparing Stat Lines, but when you look at full builds they are definitely there.

Just as a start, compare the power of individual Gear Boosts + Primary Fighting Style bonuses (Soldier gets 10 of those through level 20) to individual Revelations (Solarian gets 10 of those through level 20.) I'm hard-pressed to find many cases where I wouldn't rather have a Revelation at any level.

Go make a Mechanic with a 16 int.

Cathulhu had a pretty cool Switch Hitter Exocortex Mechanic build going around that had Int at 13 and only went up from level increases. Certainly a combat focus at the expense of skills, resolve, and abilities that relied on class DCs (that sounds familiar!), but it did what it did well and in a flavorful way.

In fact, I would say if you dove into other classes with the same passion you have for Solarian, you'd find that's true in a lot of cases.

Having to sacrifice one part of the class if you want to be 'optimal' in another part of the class is NOT unique. I don't disagree the way Solarian is asked to do it IS somewhat unique (Being more MAD than any other base class and having to have at least one of your attributes lower than you'd ideally want isn't something other classes have to do.)

But other classes have things like feat taxes, being forced to invest all their class abilities in certain trees while ignoring other parts of the class, or just have to deal with being suboptimal at portions of the game (Soldiers and Skill Checks for example - There's no way to optimize a Soldier to be the best at any Skill. Period. Another class can always do it better if equally optimized, and in many cases even if not optimized.)

In your Mystic example above with the "craptastic band-aid" Solarian array, you skipped over the fact that a Mystic basically needs to take AT LEAST Longarms Proficiency and Versatile Specialization (and arguably Weapon Focus and/or Heavy Weapons) to be even relevant damage-wise, even with 24 Dex. The Solarian can drop 4 points out of Wisdom and put them in 18 Intelligence for 2 extra skill points (one of the "fixes" suggested above). Take Iron Will and Improved Iron Will with the 2 feats that the Mystic had to spend on Longarms, and you've got your +2 Will Save back to the magic "minimum 16" with the extra rider of Resolve Point to Save ability.

There is a lot of excellent theorycrafting and thought-provoking examples in this thread, but I think you risk coming to wrong conclusions about 'definitively proving the Solarian is broken' when you only look at "What is the Solarian giving up to be equal in power to another class?" and ignore "What is another class giving up to be equal in power to the Solarian?"

What did the Solarian's look like?

Oh right:

Fort: +15 (+12 +3)
Ref: +16 (+6 +5 +5)
Will: +15 (+12 +3)

So, whereas the Solarian meets the minimum 16 in only 1... The Mystic makes it in only 2, and for bonus points, the Reflex Save is the least necessary save because it almost exclusively deals in damage

The 26/20/18/14/18/20 array you referenced above would be 16 Fort, 16 Ref, 16 Wis, which means they meat the "16 minimum" guideline you set for yourself in all three saves...

I know it's partially tongue in cheek, but I believe the problem is that there is a feeling by some that an Optimized Solarian (as a full BAB class) should be able to be numerically identical to an optimized Soldier (as the only other full BAB class available right now).

Essentially Solarian should equal Soldier but with Revelations instead of Gear Boosts. And with just CRB that's impossible to achieve right now. Due to the MAD nature of the class, you have to choose to have a lower bonus in some capacity (Saves, Skills, DCs, To Hit/Damage, etc).

Lots of great math done all around to prove it, but for any of that to matter the core thesis has to be as a design goal the two classes should be balanced against each other, which...Who knows if the designers felt the same way and messed up the math, or if they felt Solarian's Revelation toolkit needed them to choose to take a hit somewhere to balance them out against a Soldier. Time and rulebooks will tell.

I'm happy to see ACs be more tightly grouped and "hittable". I know it's certainly not fun as a GM when my options are "Waste my attacks and do nothing on the guy who is effectively immune to damage since they can only be hit 20% of the time" or "make up a reason to attack someone who actually can be hit and piss off the tank who invested all those resources in a 35 AC against my +18 to hit NPCs"

To approach from another angle, I wouldn't discount a Drone Mechanic as a damage sponge.

The Shield line of Mechanic Tricks gives quite a bit of Temp HP that stacks with Forcefields and recharges every Resolve point. You can also use your Combat Drone as a pile of HP that can absorb a few hits as well. If it gets too low, use Drone Meld to get some flat x/- DR and protect it from being completely destroyed.

You lose a few AC as compared to Soldier, but can take a lot more abuse when you do actually get hit.

If you approach the Solarian from the perspective that Revelations are worthless (and should have no downside to overall class power) because they are situational, it's impossible to have a productive discussion.

There is no rule. I think this is similar to the other thread about Age Progression where because it existed in PF some people feel you must address it in SF. Some things were just cut because they add more complexity without adding more fun. If it's fun to be ambushed without your gear you could always house rule it.

Second the "either you're prone or you're standing" interpretation. When something is tall enough to be considered cover when you're Standing (and what type of cover) is just GM fiat unless it's a floor to ceiling wall, or defined by rules like a creature providing Soft Cover or the created cover from Barricade.

That is awesome! and if you combined it with a character that has reach and a reach weapon you could even do this against opponents with reach weapons. Definitely going to make a note of this.

Remember readying any type of action is a Standard action, regardless of what you're readying. So yes you could ready an action to take a Guarded Step towards an opponent and get a "free" AoO, but you're giving up your attack that turn to do it.

If you thought you'd Standard to attack and then Ready a Guarded Step it doesn't work like that.

All I can think of is Jayce from League of Legends.

https://goo.gl/images/WJuSzJ

There is at least some room for discussion :). Page 59 in the Classes section says each class gets it "as per the feat". Specific trumps general so I would agree with you RAW it says each individual class gets the Feat itself, but the rules are conflicting in different places and the intention of the rule seems to be in the other direction.

There was also a post some time ago that Versatile was designed when classes weren't granted the feat, which meant it was a two-feat investment to get Specialization in all weapons. Again, nothing official from errata but worth considering.

That was probably true in Pathfinder, but in Starfinder that's not quite as true. Considering they added stamina to differentiate some abstraction, then the whole Massive Damage rule, and how you can restore HP with medical treatment directly...

It may not be solidified what the value of 1 HP is (Yes that is still Abstract) but it's clear being shot is actually being shot now.

Not necessarily. You could still have Stamina represent easily-recovered avoidance (keeping your head on a swivel and just barely stepping out of the way of a shot) vs. HP representing more long-lasting damaging avoidance (you have to slam yourself into a wall and break a rib, get a graze or a burn avoiding). In neither case do you have to say the person took a bullet to the chest.

Saying that HP damage now has to represent direct hits just because it exists separately isn't a sure thing.

Peat wrote:

I have a feeling that if every time I opened a door or started a conversation with my 10 dex Dwarf I said "I ready an action to swing at the first person who attacks me" so I could always go first in combat my GM would kill me.

EDIT or better yet! Use Direct Control as my standard. My drone gets to move and attack first every time.

That's not that bad, since you have to be aware of the person and they have to be up on you, someone uses reach or range or just doesn't bother attacking you and that doesn't quite work.

Completely circumventing my character's weakness of a +0 initiative bonus and guaranteeing I go first almost every combat that isn't an ambush is not bad? Seems cheesy as heck and I'm sure any GM I play with would not allow it.

The vast majority of combats begin with the opponents aware of each other (even if they don't see them, they hear fighting in the next room, alarms have gone off, etc). All this talk of invisible NPCs and surprise round is the exception not the rule.

I dunno, between Weapon Fusions, stun weapon quality and how Pin now works, it seems like there are at least options. Short of adding a completely separate system around how to disable someone, I think you have a fair amount of flexibility.

You can make the realism/game mechanics argument either way. Personally I think it's a lot more game-y when my players spend the first round doing a bit of non-Lethal, then can go all out stabbing and exploding the enemy, safe in the knowledge it won't die at the end absent some unlucky crit that does multiple attacks worth of damage.

Taking someone alive should require deep penalties and careful planning. A captured opponent is worth a lot more than a dead one.

To break from vacuum physics discussion for a moment ;)

What are folks thoughts at low level between Tactical Doshko and Flame Doshko. Even if you assume EAC is around 2 lower than KAC (seems to float around 1-2 difference at low levels) Tactical still has better average damage. You can't Full Attack, but Full Attack seems like it's needed less at low levels (melee can often down something in a swing, and most characters won't have high enough bonus to hit that makes Full Attack make more sense consistently)

Curious about thoughts and experiences.

I have a feeling that if every time I opened a door or started a conversation with my 10 dex Dwarf I said "I ready an action to swing at the first person who attacks me" so I could always go first in combat my GM would kill me.

EDIT or better yet! Use Direct Control as my standard. My drone gets to move and attack first every time.

Not being able to act in a surprise round helps partially, but what about circumstances where it's just a normal "roll for initiative" we all pull out our guns and start firing. My understanding of initiative is that it's supposed to simulate who's quicker on the draw when everyone is trying to act simultaneously. If you can ready an action to circumvent that, it seems to muddy those waters quite a bit.

As a player it would be frustrating if I have a +10 bonus to initiative, roll a 20 on initiative check and attack the enemy, only to hear "he readied an action to move away behind cover if you draw your weapon." What's the point of a high initiative if everyone can ready actions to go before you?

Magic and/or nanites. Not very satisfying but it works.

Thankfully I'm neither a medieval Weapons and armor expert nor a hacker so never was bothered by abstractions in PF or SF. Ignorance is bliss.

Space McMan wrote:

It's the DM's job to balance combat, not the players.

No. It's the DM's job to create a situation where the players can have fun. My group does not enjoy DMs who softball encounters and use subpar tactics unless there is a clear reason as to why they're using subpar tactics.

If Starfinder has been designed so poorly that using stock standard tactics makes the game unfun, that's a game problem, not a player problem.

[EDIT]: Also, SFS minimises how much I can change the encounters.
[2nd EDIT]: Also in the two combats ** spoiler omitted **

Combat discipline and morale are well-established in both fiction and nonfiction. Someone telling you "shoot this target" at the start of the fight doesn't mean you're not going to freak out and start shooting/running away from the giant Vesk in your face with the Doshko, especially if you're not a trained fighter to begin with (ie a gang member...or a miner...).

Shield remains active for one minute per mechanic level. You can safely activate this in anticipation of a fight (before you kick down the door or jump down the pit) pretty early on so it doesn't cost any action in combat in most cases.

It's a solid build - my only tweak (which entirely comes up to personal preference) would be how much you invest in improving initiative. A feat and 3 Mechanic Tricks (although most of them offer other desirable side-benefits like Saves, AC, Perception check) is a lot when it's not a build that really *needs* to go first other than the Supercharge Weapon cast a few times per day.

The Energy Shield line in particular could provide a lot of value if we're strictly looking at combat potential, and Scout Bot and Neural Shunt are both very solid utility options.

EDIT: Noting the poster above, the build could probably do without the Quick Draw feat as well. In addition to the fact that it's not a legal build :) I'm not sure I understand the part where you say in combat tactics 'Swift action draw, and move to put yourself in range of their charge.' Understand the wanting to draw out the -2 atk/-2 AC (although they may not always charge anyway), but you're then giving up a turn of doing damage to them while they can't do damage to you, and you're also likely stepping out of cover. Save a feat, draw the Hammer with a move action, and let them come to you. Worst case scenario, if they back off when you draw the hammer, you switch grips and draw your laser pistol.

Not everything is an opposed check. Almost every Skill has some flat DCs along with scaling DCs. You get objectively better at recalling basic information with Culture or jumping higher with Athletics or many other flat checks.

Before you add a bunch of house rules to Snipers, I think it's important to realize why they are like they are. It's not just because Devs didn't understand balance and damage curves - when you make long range Combat better than close range (equal or higher damage, no chance of attacking back) the optimal strategy becomes "let the sniper kill as many as they can every fight before we engage at normal range".

Fun for the sniper, less fun for the other players at the table or the GM who now has to balance around that.

You make it up and balance based on other similar mechanics, just like you do for everything else that doesn't have a rule. I much prefer two sets of mechanics that do what they do well than one 'unified' set that does one or both poorly for the sake of being interchangeable.

What kind of trickery are you trying to get up to? I'm curious :)

They spoiled Iron Gods pretty well, so I don't think they are above spoiling things if it advances the setting

What would you think for the Dwarf stat line? 14/12/12/13/12/8?

Mechanic and Technomancer are both heavily reliant on levels (exocortex is very subpar if you let it lag behind, casters always struggle with multiclass)

Straight Technomancer can do everything you mentioned above. I think that's your best bet. You can take Heavy Armor and Longarms with feats if you want to have that kind of combat contribution to fall back on.