Powers128's page

I've been loving it for the few builds I've messed around with. Radiant epithet with horn of plenty makes a very good healer for something that isn't a caster. Proud epithet along with mirrored aegis makes for a good pseudo guardian. The penalty can also stack with taunt if you grab guardian dedication. The trick is to find potent combinations of ikons and epithets to fit a niche.

There are probably more combinations that aren't gonna stand out I'd say. You have to be picky. The support oriented builds are the strongest imo.

Powers128 wrote:

I like the idea of the wand being able to trigger weaknesses via exploit vulnerability. It would be pretty strong as a base ability. Sounds more like adept or an intensify effect.

Pushing it back to adept or intensify means we aren't fixing the problem of baseline wand being terrible though.

Proccing exploit is strong, but it's also something thaumaturges are already expected to be able to do by default and the fact that you're trading away your damage mechanic is one of the reasons the wand is in such an awkward place.

Idk. I've gotten decent use out of it. I like that it's 60 feet. Maybe just make it d6s and forget about the optional boost.

What's funny is that it might end up nerfed to make it in line with the remastered cantrips.

I like the idea of the wand being able to trigger weaknesses via exploit vulnerability. It would be pretty strong as a base ability. Sounds more like adept or an intensify effect.

When I run this game later this year, I'm tempted to go with automatic bonus progression but I think that might be significantly more potent in this system considering area weapons and the multi-arm ancestries.

I am coming at this from a pathfinder rune budget perspective. Is the budget noticably different this time around to carry multiple weapons?

I also noticed all those weapon swap feats.

That really sucks. I could see the utility of moving your upgrades around for your solar flare but for twin weapon builds, there's no merit.

maybe the twin weapon feat is missing some text that they share crystals or something. Would be nice to see in the errata anyways.

Would duo enhancers work on a one handed solar weapon and solar flare assuming you're holding the solar flare? (Embedded in the palm of your hand)

On that note, would duo enhancers work at all even for twin weapon builds? The terms are different than regular weapon grades. Potency vs tracking.

Much of the interesting builds I can think of unfortunately would require the equivalent of automatic bonus progression.

A ranged build focused on your various solar flair abilities paired with an area weapon would be cool.

Just having the option to be a switch hitter in general could be a selling point but there's no way to share crystals. Other weapon classes could pull it off with the upgrade duplication thing but I don't think that works for solarian even if you hold your solar flare. Different terms for it's upgrades. If ever they errata this class, they ought to share upgrades with their granted weapons

Yeah the one handed options are above budget, especially with reach. No reason the two handed option should be below budget

Surprised there isn't a D8 one handed gun.

Sustained effects are good til the end of your next turn pretty sure.

I'm a little uncertain if the extra damage from your attunement applies to the damage when it ends. That might be too good

Constellation vortex is also a reasonable 3 action activity if ever you have the opportunity to prebuff before a fight so you can have 3 weapons active at the start.

I think I sold myself on this now lol. This one seems fun at least

I wonder how constellation vortex play would fair. Those numbers seem pretty good. That would be my choice.

You could even multiclass soldier to add even more area damage per round and get a map free attack at 10th level.

Powers128 wrote:

Well the comparison is just about how the solarian doesn't do much on its own without its feats.

:squints:

Are you sure that is the complaint you want to go with? Because that seems like a problem that is already fixed. I haven't heard of a GM saying that you have to play a class without its class feats.

As far as core features go, it doesn't have a lot going on. Yeah that's what I'm saying

Which is potentially fine if the class is meant to get most of its power through feat choices (like kineticist) I'm wondering if that's what's meant to be sold. I do like at least a few feats

The math on constellation vortex seems promising. It's like a delayed area attack to adjacent targets plus some extra damage when you decide to end it. That's some decent melee threat I'd say.

Well the comparison is just about how the solarian doesn't do much on its own without its feats.

I can see a combination of stellar rush, supernova, and black hole being ok to use. Concealing your allies and pulling people into reactive strike range seems pretty ok and then exploding. If the budget is meant to be all in the feats I might be able to see that but there's only a few good ones it looks like

Despite some aesthetic similarities you're not really similar to a kineticist at all, or even other utility martials like the Inventor or Thaumaturge. You have basically no tricks base kit, but you might pick up a few via feats. More similar to a ranger maybe in that regard.

You're there primarily to Strike. Your baseline class features are two unique weapons with strike riders and a reaction to give you another Strike. There is literally nothing but hitting things with your weapon until you dig into specific feats.

I don't think you're missing anything, and tbh it does feel a little like it's missing some kind of baseline Solarianness with arrangements removed.

The class is very Strike centric, but not particularly exceptional at them. Its unique weapon is good but not super crazy, the damage buff is a bit weak and conditional, and that's your whole kit.

It's at least a little similar to the playtest kineticist in that its granted attacks were weapons and it's got some blasting using class DC. Plus the disharmony abilities feel a lot like overflow.

But yeah I think I don't like this class very much . I thought for sure that you could at least share upgrades with both your melee and your ranged strikes but nope.

I'm having trouble seeing a solid role for solarian in its basic features. Being the main supported melee class among the 6, it seems a little lackluster imo. It's a lot like the playtest kineticist. I can see some use in its feats. Is it supposed to be treated like a weird kineticist and the value just comes from its special abilities?

It has a decent damage feature for photon mode and reactive strike but is that enough for a melee focus? I feel like I might be missing something.

Competing with juggernaut charge seems pretty fair honestly

Stuff with specific and useful abilities and spells are what I look for in summons. Like the kanya and their +2 on courageous anthem is a standout one for summon celestial.

Surprised bodyguard hasn't been mentioned as a particularly potent ability for level 1. It's essentially a one action heightened forbidding ward that also makes things off-guard and gives everyone else some protection too. Grab some status bonuses for yourself and allies and you've got a lot of protective power before needing to intercept For just one action.

Rallying anthem or heightened protection/benediction with a bodyguard(ian) would make for some really tough parties

With munitions master, there's burrowing shot at 10th level which doubles damage to objects and structures which would suggest it does normal damage otherwise.

Maybe we should have clearer rules before they write abilities like this.

Another fun combo is sure footed with giant barbarian archetype.

My choice for multiclass would be wood kineticist for timber sentinel and pick up the die upgrade for shields. add even more hp pools to the fight lol.

I feel with the passive resistance you get all the time, you'll be able to tank more damage over time regardless of that particular nerf to intercept but it does leave it feeling a bit weak in a vacuum

It's more of a situational tool which I think is reasonably balanced with the rest of the kit. It becomes a lot more reliable at lvl 7 when you can shield block the damage from intercept

shroudb wrote:

From the little I've seen, the main offensive capabilities of Guardians are against those who's ignore your Taunt.

So it seems counterproductive to try to build without it.

While I'm at it, if the GM (almost) never makes attacks that don't include the guardian, don't these punishing feats end up being a bit useless?

Because the punishment for attacking others without including the guardian is already quite high by default, and in roleplay terms, it probably means the enemy will hate the guardian a lot and will focus on it. Won't this mean that most of the punishing feats almost never have their requirements met?

Conceptually, it's a cool idea. But I can't really see it being used in practice except by GMs who attack randomly.

Well the purpose of those punishing abilities is in part to encourage being targeted along with your taunt. I imagine your taunt alone might not be quite enough to keep enemies away from your allies when you're still at +2/4 AC compared to your allies with the penalty.

Classic rock and a hard place scenario, punishing enemies whichever choice they make.

Bummer that defensive swap on commander isn't also a guardian option. It would allow you to more proactively use your AC to defend your allies. I see that being a popular multiclass since when applicable, it's just better than intercept.

Edit: technically it would turn off your taunt benefits like off guard since they're now targeting you

I like the balance they struck with its offense and defense on its chassis. Delayed weapon specialization is a much easier pill to swallow than delayed accuracy

I do like the idea that an exemplar spark is like the martial equivalent of a divine sorcerer. Heritage is even one of the suggested origins.

Given the strength of composition cantrips on their own, I imagine a wave casting martial bard would be pretty potent. Would be cool to see

You would have access to both focus spells without needing to use circle of spirits. That's the main thing that comes to mind

Ten minute cooldown on it too. Its use with touch spells is probably the best use case as with typical reach spells I'd argue.

Animist has a unique spellshape feat called grasping spirit spell which covers the use cases of reach spell. It's unfortunately a level 2 feat so you can't take it with natural ambition

You can take spirit familiar with natural ambition though.

I'm also bothered by circle of spirits. Should have been a core feature imo

That is the cannon reason for exemplars but it shouldn't take a lot of legwork to adapt its flavor to a different origin. Perhaps they got their spark from a different long gone deity.

It could also be that god magic is strange and some of it went back in time

Seems cut and dry to me. Can clauses are pretty sturdy in this system.

Grabbing gunslinger archetype for risky reload is a good idea, especially with the tome intensify effect. Since your build isn't using a weapon implement, you can also invest in Gunner's bandoliers. You can grab their slingers reload at level 10 too. Choose pistolero. Great with your regalia bonuses.

Your only avenue may be to convince your GM to allow cold iron blanche to work on unarmed attacks.

It's technically about half a point less on average but crossbow crack shot pretty handily closes that gap.

The real challenge is that you can't use risky reload with crossbows

The combination weapons in the TV remaster also have not gotten any adjustments that the gng ones did for the sake of balancing them with the swap action.

Animist has a unique version of widen spell that explicitly works with emanations. It turns off your vessel spells though

I've seen a good number of gunslingers in play and they've been consistently fun and useful.

One thing that bugs me about the remaster changes however is that drifter is shoehorned into combination weapons. It's nice that they're more accurate now but their options are much more limited given the small number of one handed combo weapons.

But does she fight, slaughter, and leave orphans in her wake for a cause or simply for the glitter of gold? If it's the later, she might find herself facing the vengeance of some of her victims one day and death might not be as kind as it has been before...

Yeah I feel like some of the themes are conflicted. She refuses the lessons of harnessing her anger and aggression but ends up becoming monsterous anyways. She fights for the helpless but is also cruel and kills for money. Maybe that's supposed to be part of the tragedy but I'm not feeling it. She's kinda just a hypocrite

It's worth noting that Gunner's Bandolier exists, but explicitly does not work with quickdraw, which is a pretty crippling factor as it means it's not really any better than simply reloading normally, unless you're looking to save a feat on free-hand reloading, and don't want to just use a slide pistol or something instead.

I do often look at the Repeating Crossbow and Repeating Hand Crossbow and wonder why they're advanced weapons, especially when looking at the air repeaters. A Martial repeating firearm would by necessity likely need to lack fatal, but it would be nice for it to be there at all, for those classes who don't want to focus on crit-fishing, but still want to have it as an option.

I find the most practical use for the gunners bandoliers is that you can diversify your firearms such as carrying dragon mouth pistols along with your dueling pistols or even having melee combination weapons such as a triggerbrand in the bandoliers.

That and if you're using risky reload, you can avoid clearing jams on your guns by simply drawing a new one which makes risky reload always a net positive on action compression with one handed guns as long as you have guns in the bandoliers.

Divine mysteries page 287

The initial revelation spell for the Blight mystery, Ulcerous Canker most likely has inaccurate scaling

Really fun spell. I'll add that you can move allies out of AOEs before you cast them

Yes, as per the injury poison rules, it must be a successful strike. It could be a reasonable adjustment to work with this ability though so I would ask your GM if you want it to work.

A metal kineticist with plate in treasure can make all their abilities plated in gold. Throw in earth and you could be blasting with gemstones as well. Could be a fun concept for a hypothetically rich character who literally throws money at his problems. And it works