Squark's page

And that's not due to the remaster and slinger's precision- Back when it was singular expertise my advice to anyone who insisted on building a barricade buster Gunslinger was to take Archer dedication so you can take feats that synergize was with your weapon.

The irony of "Just give Gunslinger firearms without reload" is that the class is so tied to reloading weapons that repeating weapons and temporally displaced starfinder guns are better on other classes. Feats designed to work with bows have much better synergy with such weapons.

4. How does starting a character at a higher level and GM chronicles mix or not? For example, if you have 2 GM chronicals and build a 3rd-level character.

Think of it this way. Deciding what level your new PC will start at is step 0 of character creation. Once you do that, you can assign legal chronicles to them. But I don't think Alex is suggesting you can assign credit from a level 1-2 adventure you GM'd to a character you create at level 3. But if you GM 1-00 and 1-12, you could apply those chronicles to a fresh 3rd level character and now that character would have 8 XP, 760 additional credits, and 16 days of downtime.

Monkhound wrote:

As per the Lorespire:

Quote:

Replaying for no credit: This is only allowed if the alternative is for the table not to play. Players must record any items or resources expended and can be given a blank Chronicle for this purpose. This is an exception to the rule that you cannot assign more than one copy of a single adventure's Chronicle to a given character.

So it's not that it's discouraged, it's simply not allowed unless there is absolutely no other option and the table would otherwise be cancelled.

There's definitely been quite a few games canceled because too few players and nobody wanted to play something they already played and have to pay for it with boon points.

Calling in reserve players to play for no credit at last minute is... awkward. It exists in theory, but in practice, unless you're at a Convention you probably don't have enough time to get people. I guess if you knew some people wanted to play an adventure that probably wouldn't get enough eligible players to go off normally you could put out a call for people to backfill a table in advance, but predicting that will happen is tricky.

Squark wrote:

They don't want you bringing vehicles to scenarios they haven't planned for you to have vehicles in.

Who is they?

Vehicles were allowed in Starfinder 1. The writers managed to figure out how they work there.

Right now in many of the SFS2 scenarios on Akiton they are lending you hover vehicles (D-Vees) just so the travel time isn’t insane. Doesn’t seem unreasonable to allow people to have their own vehicles rather than always having to get them from the motor pool.

Admittedly I don't know how SF1's vehicle rules worked with encounter building. But with 2e's tight math, someone having a better vehicle or insisting on bringing their worse vehicle would throw balance off to an incredible degree if the vehicles stats are relevant to the encounter.

I guess you could get a boon to own your own D-Vee and give it a paint job, but what if season 2 requires players to have something to fly from one giant floating mushroom to another on baroque flying machines instead? For that matter, as a GM, why not let someone pick the paint job of their D-Vee if it matters to them?

I am very confused. There's a lot of errors in your original post.

-Starfinder 1e had thirteen classes not eleven.
-The Initial Sf2e Playtest onlt featured 6 classes, although the Precog's flavor became a Witchwarper subclass
-The Tech Playtest, which released months later, had two classes (the ones that will be in tech core)

To provide some additional news beyond what Xenocrat mentioned
-We have no news on Vanguard, Evolutionist, or Biohacker apart from the Devs saying they'd like to explore new classes first after Tech Core
-Nanocyte will become an Archetype muchlike how Cavalier and Vigilante became archetypes in the transition from pathfinder 1e to 2e.

I wonder how Space Goblins will be handled. Now that 2e has ancestries and heritages instead of races and subraces, I could see Space Goblins going either way. They could be either a whole new ancestry, with Space themed heritages, or just a single heritage for the existing goblins. Them being a bit taller and more intelligent already makes them similar to hobgoblins as well, so either way I doubt there'd be room for a Space Hobgob. It would be kinda funny if the 2E debut of bugbears as a player option was in a SF book instead of a PF book.

Hobgoblins and Space Goblins are still very distinct. Space Goblins continue their goblin-y antics but IN SPAAAACE, while Hobgoblins have two civilizations in Near Space (with a fair number of Space Goblin Citizens, admittedly)- The Gideron Authority and Marixah Republic, which are on the brink of war with each other.

griefninja wrote:

I wouldn't mind some kind of "anachronistic" book to specifically focus on what the different people of old Golarion are up to in "modern" times. Planets colonized by different countries developing their own unique cultures and different ancestries living together you wouldn't usually expect.

Starfinder lore kinda precludes that bolded part- or, it might be more fair to say that we already have most of what it's likely to include. Interstellar travel was a big endeavor before Drift drives, and those came after the Gap. So, the nations of Golarion mostly couldn't move to new planets except within the system before the Gap. After the Gap, nobody really knows what nations there were on the planet by the end of the Gap, and the planet itself is gone.

We do have some of that, but it's what's already in the game. We have the different Pact Worlds System planets, of course, as well as the Azlanti Star Empire, who got their start pre-Gap.

The rest of it- finding out what kholo or kitsune or other non-Core ancestries are commonly up to- is all still on the table. It just probably won't be very nation-focused.

While pre-drift colonization was difficult, it could and did happen- The Gideron Authority and Marixah Republic were an interstellar society founded by Pact Worlds Colonists (Especially Hobgoblins) before the individual planets forgot each other after the gap.

J_Figard wrote:

I am looking for the Esoteric Spellcaster for the "Impossible Lands", so that my cleric can cast "Summon Healing Servitor".

You can get that through your home region for free, or via World Traveler boon at 20 AcP.

Where does it say that? I don't see it on the character options page.

Starfinder 2 boon.

Was looking for equipment for my character and started looking at the vehicles. Then I went to the Character Options page and saw this line:

Starfinder GM Core wrote:

As Starfinder GM Core primarily contains tools for GMs, new subsystems, and rules variants rather than direct player options, all content from this book is of Limited availability. However, Organized Play will be drawing from the rules options in this book in creating future adventures, boons, and other content.

I would either like the above to change to give Standard availability to Vehicles (GM Core pg 234-239) or a boon to allow purchase of vehicles from there.

They don't want you bringing vehicles to scenarios they haven't planned for you to have vehicles in.

I was told by my local PFS/SFS that Venture Agents get the scenarios for free?

Yes, all Venture Agents receive the entire library of publicly available organized play scenarios* for free to facilitate us acting as a lending library for our community (which I wish more people took advantage of locally)

*We don't recieve specials until the convention exclusivity period ends, and they don't distribute content that's been withdrawn like Quest 12.

The Hafling's distracting shadows feat is another great way to consistently make a Sniper's abilities work. But yeah, unfortunately you really need to find ways to work around unfriendly maps as a Sniper.

Alkarius wrote:

Quote:

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

Domain Initiate from Cleric works similarly right?

Domain Initiate gives you a focus pool if you don't have one. If you do have one, it adds a focus point, because it gives a focus spell and you have focus points equal to your number of focus spells (max 3). Nothing that grants focus spells in the remaster specifies that it grants an extra focus point because it's a core rule now.

Psi cantrips don't follow that rule inherently because they're cantrips rather than focus spells. So they need to say they give you one, or they don't.

The really weird part here seems to be how it will give you a focus pool if you don't have one and thus 1 focus point, but it won't add a focus point if you already have one. That means taking Psychic archetype and Psi Development, then taking Cleric Dedication and Domain Initiate would give you 2 focus points.

Reversing the order gives you 1 focus point for the same feats and the same spells. And that is wonky.

I don't think reversing the order changes things. Feats that give you focus spells are largely losing the language that they also five you a focus point- That's now just a property of focus spells- You have focus points equal to the number fo focus spells you know up to three (unless Animist or Psychic gives you more focus points because they break the rules). If you take Psi Development and then gain a regular focus spell, you still only know one focus spell, so you only have one focus point.

It's consistent, even if I vehemently dislike it.

Quote:

Psi Development provides the amp for the psi cantrip you get from Psi Dedication in addition to its own psi cantrip, and gives you a focus pool of 1 Focus Point if you don't have one already. This means that if you already have a focus pool, you don't gain a Focus Point.

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

I'd have to assume actual Psychics still get focus points from them or are getting them some other way?

I think this an ill considered attempt at internal consistency, actually. Ampable cantrips are not focus spells. If they were, psychics would start with 3 focus points at level 1, and Psi Development would give you two focus points. So Psychics (Multiclass or otherwise) get either the number of focus points their class/archetype tells them, or the a number of focus points equal to the number of focus spells they know (which is 0 from Psychic)

But like I said, it's a horrible change in practice.

Quote:

This just doesn't make sense to me and flies in the face of how focus spells work in the remaster. Once you can amp it, a psi cantrip is functionally a focus spell. It giving you a focus point would be logically consistent with how the remaster changed focus points. It not doing that is this weird exception that sticks out like a sore thumb. Is there literally anything else in the remaster that can give you a focus pool but doesn't give you a focus point if you already have one?

I can't think of one.

Domain Initiate from Cleric works similarly right?

Nope. It gives you a focus spell, and unless something is giving you extra focus points, you have focus points equal to the number of focus spells you have, up to 3.

According to today's blog, the Gen Con 2026 PFS schedule will, with the exception of the special, consist exclusively of new format scenarios (that is, the 3hr, no stat block format scheduled to debut next month). That means that literally all PFS content from 2025 or earlier -- six and a half out of seven seasons, or 93% of existing PFS 2e content -- will be entirely absent from organized play at the largest gaming convention in the world.

While I've given up any hope of response from Paizo to the community's concerns about the scenario changes, I can't help but be curious what the "of course the scenario changes won't reduce the variety of content being offered" crowd from a few months back would say now...

For PF2 and SF2, the loss isn't as big as it seems. The overwhelming majority of content on offer for these systems has always been stuff that's less than a year old.

But PF1 and SF1 losing out does undeniably suck.

I don’t think it was ever meant to be. The whole point of psi cantrips is that they’re upgrades to regular cantrips, and amps are better than most other focus spells. While I do think there are issues to poaching amps, spending class feats to have an above-average cantrip I don’t think is unbalanced when you have focus and slot spells.

Psi cantrips being better than other cantrips I'll grant you (Although that rapidly loses relevance once you have enough spells to cast multiple ranked spells per combat). But I've never bought the idea that Amped Psi Cantrips are better than Focus spells apart from maybe 4 outliers (Shatter Mind, Guidance, Message, and the old Imaginary weapon). I guess I can see where the reputation came from when bery few classes had access to good focus spells. But that seems to be more a case of them finally nailing down what they want focus spells to be able to do woth psychic, and most focus spells from then on being at roughly psychic's level.

Did the Mind Smith archetype get reprinted with extra feats and traits?

Bear in mind anything cnew in the book means something else came out from the same section, so best to temper your expectations.

Huh, I didn't think to checl the playtest rulebook itself.

Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I feel like the sheer fact that this many people were this invested in this particular cantrip exclusive to this subclass of this class -- to the point that it's completely dominated a forum ostensibly about a completely different book -- might just be a good indicator that it was dominating the meta and there was a good reason to knock it down a peg.

Seriously, were all of you actually playing this exact same build?

It's not that surprising people would latch on to a high risk, high reward play style that's not readily available elsewhere. But there also just isn't a lot to talk about Psychic besides this change, so it's dominating discussion.

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I simply choose to believe Xenocrat is a malicious agent of some kind of foul God Of Lies, and that these heretical untruths will never come to pass if I stick my fingers in my ears and loudly proclaim that I can't hear them.

Confirmed on the recent dev show or stream or whatever that Xenocrat is not an agent of evil. They announced there are "no plans for a playtest."

... Not to be too critical but something about saying you aren't planning to do a playtest as the way of announce you're canceling the playtest feels kind of... weird? Like it reframes the idea as something they're being asked about out of the blue and not them canceling a thing they told us about in the past.

This has been mentioned before, so I went archive trawling. Did they ever formally say there would be a space combat playtest, or just that it wasn't in the initial playtest because it wouldn't be in launch? Because I can't find anything on the blog.

Fantastic work!

I also agree. Losing focus spell spellstriking isn't a big deal if they replace it with fun things to do on other turns. And it'd merely be frustrating if we at least got another 1 action conflux spell that offers mobility for melee maguses so they're still able to spellstrike repeatedly like Starlit Span with Force Fang.

But you know what? Just you watch in "Impossible Magic" where Remastered Magus will have Spell-strike be only performed with Slot-spells or Cantrips, no longer will it work with Focus Spelsl just because Casters need to be nerfed for whatever reason. This is the change i am expecting for Remastered Magus if Remastered Psychic is anything to go off of...

Am I Paranoid? Absolutely, am I expecting the worst, absolutely. There is no reason for us to assume Magus and Summoner as both casters won't get nerfs with this Remastered or the others, so far.

Focus spell spellstriking is something that's almost definitely on the Developer's radar. The pressure to archetype is too high. There are a couple of ways they could address it

1) Give the Magus Focus spells to spellstrike with. Boring, but efficient.
2) Focus spells can't be used to spellstrike. Frustrating, but definitely on the table, unfortunately
3) Focus spells cannot be used to spellstrike, BUT conflux spells get a major glow up. Add a few rank 1 conflux spells any Magus can take thay are 1-action (or even better, some of them could be 1-3 action!), like one that lets you take a [Move] action with a status bonus to yout speeds- These let people spellstrike every round without spending a third action to twiddle their thumbs. But then you give the hybrid study cantrips much bigger, flashier effects, so you're encouraged to do other things. Inexorable Iron gets to slam their weapon down and create huge cones or lines, Laughing Shadow can teleport and strike repeatedly in a turn, Starlit Span launches rains of arrows, etc. This would actually be my preferred solution, but it also requires the most work.

I'm feeling the autism today so here's a list of the SF1e races native to the Pact Worlds system that haven't been added to either game's 2e or confirmed for Galactic Ancestries:

•Anassanoi (The Sun; Not technically native but I think they've been there for a while)
•Dirindi (Arkanen)
•Giants (Golarion; might be complicated lorewise by thr existence of Jotunborn)
•Haan (Bretheda)
•Kanabo (Golarion; basically Hobgoblin Hungerseed)
•Maraquoi (Marata)
•Nuar (Golarion; will probably be folded into Minotaurs)
•Ryphorians (Triaxus)
•Sazarons (Arkanen)
•SRO (Everywhere; confirmed for tech book I think)
•Trox (Nchak)
•Urogs (Dykon)
•Varculaks (Versatile Heritage material but lore suggests the phenomenon originated on Golarion)
•Verthani (Verces; also confirmed for tech book I think)
•Witchwyrds (Golarion; also not native but they've definitely been around)
•Xulgaths (Golarion)

Nuar will be in Absalom Station, along with Gnarefuroids.

Divinr Mysteries says, "In such cases, the characters still worship a specific patron deity (or other power) among those in the pantheon or covenant," so I believe the intent is you can choose a non-deity member of a covenant. In such cases you don't have additional edicts and anathema.

We've since learned that the GenCon release will be Starfinder: Absalom Station, but I've heard that some of the Devs have said that Tech Core is expected to be a 2026 release, so an October-December release seems like the most likely.

Nope, I was wrong.

If memory serves, the chronicle allows you to give access to the item to one character of yohr choice, thus sparing you the ACP on bequeathing the item.

Happy to see we've finally got a Second Edition board.

Is this thread for errata suggestions, or just to talk about the Winter Errata blog?

The latter.

exequiel759 wrote:

The fact that the magus and summoner aren't restrained by page count (or well, at least aren't restrained to Secrets of Magic page count) makes me really happy because it means its the perfect opportunity to polish these classes which, while good right now, could receive the changes it needs to remove its few pain points.

I'm keeping my expectations fairly grounded for how many changes I'm expecting to see. Not being constrained to Secrets of Magic page count doesn't mean they are necessarily getting more pages; this sounds like it's going to be a pretty jam-packed book.

I'm personally expecting something more akin to the remastering treatment gunslinger and inventor got rather than any sort of serious overhaul or major feat selection expansion.

It's keeping the page layout (including the art assets) that made GNG so conservative.

Store link

While I'm anxious for my SFS Technomancer to get support, I'm pleased Tactical Space Combat in Tech Core is getting the time to cook it needs. And maybe that rumored playtest can actually happen. (was it confirmed? I remember it, but I can't find evidence anymore)

*Kermit the Frog Yay! noises*

I'm glad it turned out Secrets of Magic was rolled into this book. There was so much speculation about that to the point it was almost assumed by some posters I was worried there'd be a riot if that wasn't the case.

What is up with the Dark Archives remaster? It seems to be treated differently than the Guns and Gears, because it is set up on the subscription. However, if it is on subscription, then is listed as being released on January 20th. If that is the "street date" then cards should have been charged, and PDF's released. If it is the charge date, then the store needs to indicate that.

For me, the new store continues to be a disappointment, and somehow the entire process is even more opaque than before.

The 20th is the day subscribers will be charged and PDFs will be distributed.

Hi All

Just clarifying for a local player at my PFS lodge, does Spellshot have any access requirements besides possibly using the ACP boon? This is a level 1 character they're setting up. Thanks in advance

Characters with a Home Region of Alkenstar, Dongun Hold, or the Shackles have access to all archetypes from Chapter 3 with the exception of beast gunner, fireworks technician, and spellshot.

Characters with a Home Region of Arcadia have access to the beast gunner and spellshot archetypes in addition to the above.

So, per the character options page, if you make a character from one of the above regions (or purchase the world traveler boon for one of these regions if you really want to be somewhere else), you can make your gunslinger a spellshot, no additional ACP required.

Yeah, the communication on that was awful. I think it was necessary to have some additional rulings since the legacy classes wouldn't interact with updated feats and spells with the same name, but they handled it in the most frustrating way possible.

Squark wrote:

x x 342 wrote:

So why does aonprd not override any requirement to 'own the source material'?

Turn the question around. "If archives of Nethys overrode the ownership requirement, and AoN is freely available to everyone, why would the ownership requirement exist?"

You are free to use any material you want in home games. But if you want to participate in the official organized play program that paizo spends additional money producing content for to promote the game, it's not unreasonable for them to ask you to purchase some of their products if you want to use more than the fairly generous resources in the Core Assumption.

I believe SFS and PFS scenarii are not available for free though.

As I understand it, they're still a loss leader. There are also rules in place for GMs to borrow scenarios from organizers if they are not in the financial position to purchase them.

So why does aonprd not override any requirement to 'own the source material'?

Turn the question around. "If archives of Nethys overrode the ownership requirement, and AoN is freely available to everyone, why would the ownership requirement exist?"

You are free to use any material you want in home games. But if you want to participate in the official organized play program that paizo spends additional money producing content for to promote the game, it's not unreasonable for them to ask you to purchase some of their products if you want to use more than the fairly generous resources in the Core Assumption.

So why does aonprd not override any requirement to 'own the source material'?

From https://paizo.com/pathfindersociety/characteroptions

''To use an option from any source other than those discussed above in Pathfinder Society play, you must bring any one of the following to your game table:

-A physical copy of the book you wish to use
-A name-watermarked PDF copy of the book
-Name-watermarked printouts of all relevant pages you wish to use from the PDF
-ACCESS TO THE RULES YOU WISH TO USE IN THE FORM OF EITHER ELECTRONIC ACCESS TO THE PATHFINDER REFERENCE DOCUMENT (PAIZO.COM/PRD), another official rules source such as Pathfinder Nexus, or a photocopy of the relevant pages, along with proof of purchase, such as a receipt from a game store or a screenshot of your My Downloads page on paizo.com.''

My all CAPS. paizo.com/prd redirects to aonprd

Archives of Nethys can serve as a copy of the rules for reference if you bring evidence of a proof of purchase but don't have the actual PDFs/physical books with you. I've bolded the relevant part of the sentence inyour quote.

Like Aristophanes says, Access overrides rarity, not ownership requirements. For another example Dwarven Weapon Familiarity grants access to uncommon weapons, like the Dwarven Waraxe and Dwarven Dorn-Dergar. Being in Player Core 1, the Dwarven Waraxe is part of the Core Assumption and anyone with this feat purchase it in PFS. But the Dwarven Dorn-Dergar is from Treasure Vault, so while the feat gives you access to it, you still need a copy of the book to purchase it.

Another option in 2e would be to use Xenometric Android Versatile Heritage* from the upcoming Galactic Ancestries book with the Awakened Animal Ancestry.

*At least, it sounds like it's a versatile heritage from the book description.

While putting Secrets of Magic's classes in the same book as the Impossible Playtest makes a lot of sense to me, too, I'm a little worried people are getting a little too certain about the theory. We might want to temper expectations a bit to avoid too much disappointment.

"Replace the text of the shadow snap spell (page 376) with the following:"

There's no heightening (at all) listed anymore. Is this intended?

Previously it heightened 1d10-10d10, which was outrageous compared to a witch and psychic spell that did a similar attack at 1d10-4d10 and didn't have the extra reactive strike/disrupt on a crit option. But a flat d10 forever is pretty anemic unless the intent is for this just to be used for the "stalk" effect to crit fish for disrupts.

Huh. Was changing the scaling intended at all? Or were they just trying to prevent you from sustainign the spell twice to get two MAP-less strikes.

WatersLethe wrote:

The reason they're combined is so that they're not utterly boned by resistances. You're already not guaranteed to hit both attacks, so trying to overcome resistance is already punishing as heck.

Press Strike rotations are one of the more powerful ways to build Fighter, and they still have to deal with resistances double dipping on their damage. I would think the advantage of Double Slice over that would be more accurate attacks, not necessarily piercing resistances.

WatersLethe wrote:

Finally landing both strikes only for the full damage to be eaten to no effect would have people flipping the table. Also, a lot of dual wielders and monks invest heavily in dexterity for various reasons, meaning their strength might not be maxed out, further reducing their peak damage numbers.

That does make sense. Though with that in mind, how come Double Slice prevents double dipping on precision damage but *not* Strength, when many Dex-focused classes rely on precision damage to offset lower Strength values?

Almost certainly because double slice is a fighter feat, and they were being cautious about it being used by other classes. Rogues who want a dual wielding feat that will let them apply precision damage to both strikes cam pick up Twin Takedown instead.

Circling back around here to say that Paizo has released errata today, and the overwhelming brunt of power level changes was about the Space Pirate Archetype. To summarize:

-The holo-roger now has half the range and can only target one person

-The passive benefit to Coercing has been replaced with an intimidation bonus that only works "while your flag is projected onto a starship".

-Press-Gang The Soul, despite claiming to be "at-will" still, now " requires and permanently releases one soul press-ganged with your phase cutlass."

No guidance is given on what "projected onto a starship" means- as in "using it while you are inside a ship"? As in "using it on top of your own ship?"? As in "display it on an opponents ship with some kind of projector"?

I don't know what to say about this, to be honest. While the Space Pirate archetype WAS stronger than the typical galaxy guide archetype, these changes just really bum me out. It kneecaps the two feats we all came together to praise and hold up as a shining example of fun and exciting options. It doesn't address what I would consider the ACTUAL design flaws of the Space Pirate archetype, such as the big gulf between the "fun pirate feats" and the "two hander sword + gun" feats.

I really don't like this. I think people were briefly mildly hypothetically concerned about the power level of the archetype, and in the almost year since release, I have not seen a single person actually say it has negatively affected anything.

I'm not even angry or upset, as much as just..confused and disappointed. Maybe Paizo really hasn't learned anything, and we were just projecting a new design philosophy on what they see as a mistake.

I haven't complained about it in the last year because nobody I've played with has used it, either because the cheese factor scared people off or the flavor of the archetype was totally off for the characters people had in mind (Conversely I have seen tbe much more balanced and less supernaturally icky PF2 Pirate archetype used). So bringing it up would have just made me feel like Grampa Simpson yelling at a cloud.

It's the same reason I can't muster up that much bile for PF2's exemplar dedication. I've only seen it in the wild once, and there it was being used to enable something weird instead of slap two more damage /die on a fighter with a maul

The feature is standard on most feats that let you pair strikes (The Ranger's Hunt Prey and Twin Takedown, A spirit Warrior's Overwhelming Combination). It's a nice perk for warriors that might struggle to generate big numbers to overrcome hardness or resistance otherwise, since all of these can be used by Dex based characters.

The errata to Master Gunner missed unarmed strikes when giving operatives critical specialization with anything their expert in, leading to some very said unarmed strike using operatives.

The Guns Blazing Envoy directive "Ready Arms!" Is incorrectly referred to as "Deadly Arms".

Also, for any confused Strike operatives looking for the buff mentioned in the announcement article, Eagle Eyed members of the community noticed that they're almost certainly referring to the change to the Master Gunner feature, ensuring you now have the critical specialization with melee weapons you'd think you should.

Yeah, this has the potential to backfire horribly. A level 1 PC being expert in athletics* (or worse, master, if you're getting athletics proficiency from your ancestry, background, and class) is incredibly overpowered, but at the same time you could end up with a lot of the PCs helpless in exploration. So it's not even really MinMaxing because you're Adding new weaknesses, not minimizing them.

*Athletics is probably the most notable offender, but a number of other skills like Intimidation, Diplomacy, and Deception could have outsized effects if PCs ate able to break the normal proficiency boundaries.

Yeah, they are almost certainly in the unnamed but confirmed GenCon 2026 release. The remastered releases of old rulebooks have not contained substantial amounts of new content compared to their old versions.