Rosshk's page

The striker operative also has weird weapon proficiency. They end up with legendary proficiency with unarmed attacks

They actually do not get legendary proficiency with unarmed attacks. They start level 1 at expert with them, sure, but then only melee agile weapons and simple guns scale to master at level 5, unarmed attacks do not.

I find it particularly bizarre that Strikers get their initial proficiency with unarmed attacks bumped up to Expert as part of their Exploit feature, and then… the rest of that feature's benefits entirely fail to apply to unarmed attacks. One suspects that the designers forgot unarmed attacks explicitly are not considered weapons (SF2E Playtest Rulebook, p. 170); certainly the Striker's flavour text's invoking "a martial artist who likes to show off" and "[uses their] body as a weapon" suggests they are intended to be potent unarmed combatants.

(Which reminds me that the Striker's unarmed attacks arguably could stand to gain the "you don’t take the normal -2 circumstance penalty when making a lethal attack with your fist or any other unarmed attacks" part of the PF2E monk's Powerful Fist feature, if nothing else.)

It's even worse when you look at it from the perspective of a Vesk Warblood. That's an ancestry entirely dedicated to getting cool unarmed attacks, but none of the classes in the playtest interact with unarmed attacks in any way, other than the Striker Operative.

And then the Striker Operative as written is a trap that actually wants you to exclusively use agile d4 weapons (without ANY kind of action compression for using d4 agile weapons like Pathfinder Fighters or Rangers get), because none of the operative features work with your natural weapons.

So I'm noticing that there are only 3 Directive feats.

Take 'em Alive (1action) at level 1
Get In There (1 action) at level 2
Search high and Low (1 action) at level 2

Given that there is a "Leadership Style" that who's act of leadership includes "Issue another directive (In the spotlight) that seems odd to me.

Like, the main take away I got from the previews and everything, was that we would be issuing directives to buff our allies, but given you can't use the same directive twice in one turn. You HAVE to take one of those directive feats.

Also, I guess I just figured there would be more directives, given the emphasis they had in the previews.

I'm having the same issue with the class, yeah. Right now, there's a grand total of 6 directives, and 3 of them are always going to be available for your character no matter how you build them. I was really expecting at least 1 directive specific to each of the leadership styles, because as is leadership styles... don't really do all that much? They don't have any feats tied to them, they give you a skill and a skill feat (while you're a class that's already drowning in skill feats and skill training), and then at level 6 you FINALLY get something out of it. And the level 6 effect is great! But... that's it.

Oh, and also, "From the Front" really ought to give you Shield Block. Right now, the ONLY class that gets shieldblock for free is Solarion.

No more Con/primary stat intimidation, you're still dealing with MAD on all the ranged Soldiers

You get to use CON for intimidation and athletic at level 3 (fearsome bulwark feature), but it really makes for an awkward first two levels...

CON just doesn't do a lot, which is the problem.

Hence my suggestion to specifically let the Primary Target bonus strike key off of CON instead. That wouldn't help the melee soldiers, sure, but it would make the other subclasses feel a lot more... holistic? You're clearly meant to wear heavy armour as your go-to choice, yet you also NEED to improve your dex because you constantly get strikes that use dex as attack stat.

Though close quarters getting to use STR as their primary stat (like Striker Operatives do) seems like a pretty obvious adjustment as well.

As the title says, just listing clear (and maybe some not-so-clear) errors I've found while reading the pdf playtest rules.

Page 42 - Fearless Feat is lacking a +1 bonus to saving throws against fear effects. All similar feats in PF2e (including Android "Emotionless" on page 10 of the playtest) all give a +1 circumstance bonus.

Page 69 - "Striker" Operatives become proficient with unarmed and one-handed melee weapons with the agile trait. However, NONE of the other features of the Striker exploit apply to unarmed attacks, including the proficiency scaling at higher levels, making unarmed combat builds impractical despite heavily implying to apply in the flavor text.

Page 100 - There is no way to get any kind of item bonus to hit to your solar shot, making it a very poor comparison to any any other ranged weapon in the playtest. Solar potency crystals only apply to solar weapons, and Solar Flare is not a solar weapon.

Page 169 - Mobile Bulwark "Hefty" trait is lacking a value. Hefty trait description states it requires 2 actions to raise unless users strength exceeds the value.

Page 173 - The "Auto-Fire" action does not explain what happens when you do not have enough ammo in the magazine to assign shots to every target.

Page 192 - As written, Sniper's Scope affects ranged area weapons like flamethrowers. Would be cool to keep that functionality, but probably should be a different item...

Page 193 - Shock Module says "etched onto a weapon" under usage, should be "installed in a weapon"

I agree entirely, especially since the game lacks an equivalent of Incredible Investiture from PF2e.

Yeah, I'm also kinda stumped that it's not available anywhere on the playtest page.

I wonder if changing Get'Em! to be an untyped penalty would be a bad idea. Off-Guard is easy to apply, although admittedly less so with ranged based parties.

The main idea is probably to let you apply a weaker off-guard at range? And it still doesn't seem too easy to apply off-guard at range normally, so it has some purpose. But, also... why not just have it apply off-guard...

Envoys are a good class if you want to play a social media personality in which case a Digital Diversion seems perfect.

Right, but you could do the same distractions just using deception, and be better at it because you have +4 CHA but at most +3 Int. And that's before bonuses from Size Up/Social Mastermind, your big class ability, which apply to Deception but NOT to Computers.

The biggest problem I have with Primary Target is that it consumes ammo. I'm already kinda iffy on how tiny all the magazine sizes in the game are (I know this was also the case in 1e, but I've never played that one and would probably have disliked it there just as much). But then this feature that is meant to let you use area weapons in bossfights and the likes (I DO know Pathfinder 2e, so I doubt many bosses would ever fail the reflex save) but with most of the weapons with area in the playtest, you are forced to reload either after one shot or two using that feature, usually with a 2 action reload, so 2-3 rounds into the bossfight you have a dead turn where all you do is reload and maaaybe move.

Automatic weapons fare better, admittedly. And you do get bigger magazines for batteries as you climb levels. But it still feels very... dissatisfying? It might work fine in play, my group isn't going to clear up our schedule to playtest for a while yet, but just reading it... man.

Im not opposed to Soldier being a CON class but as of now they are unbelievably MAD. Especially Close Quarters.

Close Quarters mentions still being to wield ranged weapons. There is also this very cool level 16 feature that allows you to hold a twohanded gun in one hand and a twohanded melee weapon in the other. But for that to work you need high STR, high CON AND high DEX.

Primary target needs to key off main stat, be it CON or STR. otherwise the class will always need DEX. It would make sense for primary Target to not have dex scaling since the guns are unwieldy and you are able to ignore it and you can flavour that as being able to ignore it with body strenght alone.

Making it a strenght class would also fix the MADness of Close Quarters.
Then again it wouldnt REALLY matter as long as primary fire keys off main stat.

Letting the primary target strike key off of your main stat (and letting you pick between STR or CON as that main stat) seems like it would be a very elegant solution for the MADness of Soldiers. Ranged Soldiers have their cool niche where they are all about AOE weapons and use their superior constitution to train their weapon on the target for longer than any other class is able to (hence the primary target), and melee soldiers still get to have the full +4 at lvl 1 hit and damage progression capping out at +6 at 20 like any other melee focused class.

Alright then, I figured that it's a total of 6 attacks.

The creature has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use the part of its body it used in the grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a –20 penalty on its CMB check to make and maintain the grapple, but does not gain the grappled condition itself. A successful hold does not deal any extra damage unless the creature also has the constrict special attack. If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well (the amount is given in the creature’s descriptive text).

It seems this entire paragraph only refers to the special -20 grab, not grappling in general. So if I chose to only grapple using the natural attack with grab, I can't pin or move my enemy, only damage him.

Alright, I've been thinking about playing a Goblin Feral Gnasher Barbarian. They gain a natural bite attack, which later gains the grab ability.

Now, assuming I had the rapid grappler feat and all its predecessors, how many bit attacks could I make during a "perfect" round of combat? My reasoning so far would be:

Establish bite during round ONE of combat with charge + grab (just for the record)
Start of round TWO:
Maintain Grapple (Move action) -> 1st bite from animal fury totem
Chose To Damage Enemy -> 2nd bite
Maintain Grapple (Move action) -> 3rd bite from animal fury totem
Chose To Damage Enemy -> 4th bite
Maintain Grapple (Swift action) -> 5th bite from animal fury totem
Chose To Damage Enemy -> 6th bite

HOWEVER, the entry for Grab states:

If a creature with this special attack hits with the indicated attack (usually a claw or bite attack), it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. Unless otherwise noted, grab can only be used against targets of a size equal to or smaller than the creature with this ability. If the creature can use grab on creatures of other sizes, it is noted in the creature's Special Attacks line. The creature has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use the part of its body it used in the grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a –20 penalty on its CMB check to make and maintain the grapple, but does not gain the grappled condition itself. A successful hold does not deal any extra damage unless the creature also has the constrict special attack. If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well (the amount is given in the creature’s descriptive text).

The two bold lines seem to contradict each other. Does that mean my round TWO should look like this?

Maintain Grapple (Move action) -> 1st bite from animal fury totem
Automatical 2nd Bite From Grab
Chose To Damage Enemy -> 3rd bite
Maintain Grapple (Move action) -> 4th bite from animal fury totem
Automatical 5th Bite From Grab
Chose To Damage Enemy -> 6th bite
Maintain Grapple (Swift action) -> 7th bite from animal fury totem
Automatical 8th Bite From Grab
Chose To Damage Enemy -> 9th bite