Stan_the_Magic_Man's page

Stone Dog wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

Very, very few outsiders are able to plane shift. This includes the powerful ones.

It is my (limited) understanding that it doesn't matter who can plane shift or not. If you don't have a drift engine, you aren't getting in or out.

You definitely can’t get in with magic, I think it’s unclear if you can escape.

read the CRB entry a few times it states drift is unable to be accessed via magic. it says nothing about things already there trying to get out.

My personal headcanon is that the Drift is coalescing around the unreachable pocket dimension where Golarion rests, like a pearl growing within an oyster

And the Starstone is the lynchpin that anchors this pocket to the rest of the universe

This explains why the Drift is so recent, why it has strange properties related to bending space/time, why the Starstone is the ultimate Drift beacon and why the Drift, not being completely of this world, cannot be reached by magic

Triune is in charge of reinforcing it, hence the gift of FTL technology to mortals. With its not so coincidental effect on the growth of the Drift

In this theory, FTL travel is only a side benefit and not the main goal of Triune's gift of Drift Engines technology

And no deity openly fights against the Drift because they fear what would happen should it stop growing or, even worse, if it breaks

can we just make this canon?

Pathfinder always had the lore that Rovagug was trapped inside golarion and the gods didn't know what they would do should he get out.

my thoughts were he finally got out and the gods went "ohcrapohcrapohcrap" and came up with the universe's best worst temporary solution ever. lock the planet in this bubble and have this god with a singular purpose keep the scary bug in there. Bug is getting out hence the three years before drift technology was provided and encouraged to use. Suck it spacebuggod try escaping this ever expanding plane that I made.

the gods kept the material plane safeish minus the horrors inflicted upon the population so they did what any person trying to contain a situation does with added bonus of being gods. make everyone forget the entirety of time it took to recontain Rovagug, erase anything and everything that suggests that the event happened. More importantly never ever talk about it to anyone and assure the mortals the planet is fine.

While they lie about how fine everything is they are currently putting Golarion back together and figuring out how to put Rovagug down for good.

only thing that didn't make sense to me was why not just toss him into another Galaxy or some other permanent solution like toss him in a blackhole. wait there is a sentient blackhole at the center of the universe with God like powers and the exact same objective as our favorite space bug, but more noticably that Rovagug doesn't make the list of deities, but a bigger meaner version took up the mantle

Solar Acceleration can only be used ONCE every 3 Rounds.

Actually, Guard Stepping away is almost worthless when used against a melee character. This is due to the limited number of feats and almost all melee combat characters will have Step Up & Step Up and Strike. Specially the Soldier with it's access to lots of feats.

Get a bit frustrated when people compare the Solarian to the Soldier and ignore all the extra feats and/or styles the Soldier Class.

...I really like the idea behind the Solarian and I also think it's a playable class. BUT it has some weakness when compared to the other classes. Some VERY minor tweaks could fix these weakness but these tweaks also might make the class OP when trying to fix them.

you are indeed correct. I overlooked a small detail in the zenith abilities.

one thing I do agree on is that if Charisma is the core ability then why not have more class features make use of it like let's say something the envoy does, but at the same time Solarion appears to be resolve efficient. not many ways to spend it and enough HP/SP to outlive most other classes or builds. having the RP affected by a non save ability seems like their compromise to make the Solarion have a weakness.

to me I see a durable melee DPS with a ton of built in damage boost/ utility to keep it in a fight longer or adapt to changes better than some others.

the more I read the more I get this is the SF equivilent of my favorite PF argument "why pick fighter when paladin is just better at everything?"

You need to understand the class, because you don't.

Highest DPS?

BY LESS THAN 10 POINTS PER HIT.

I'm so sick of people insinuating that the Solarian is some kind of Super DPS to justify the issues.

I'm capping that statement for a reason.

That is the end-difference between Solarian and Soldier DPS.

Less than 10 points per hit.

Less. Than. 10.

The maximum damage a Solarian can get is Weapon Code +4 (Photon Attunement) +10 Plasma Sheath +10 (Deadly Aim) +20 Weapon Specialization, +Strength

With a 26 Strength that's Weapon Damage + 52 Fire.

A Soldier can get Weapon Code + 1.5x Strength Bonus, +(2xNumber of Enemies within 4 CAR) + 10 (Deadly Aim) +20 Weapon Specialization.

With a 26 Strength this comes to a MINIMUM of Weapon Damage +44

If there are 5 enemies in the fight it is also Weapon Damage Code +52.

If there are 6 enemies it is Weapon Damage Code + 54

On top of that they get to attack twice off of a charge meaning the Soldier routinely will out-damage the Solarian.

So no. The Solarian isn't the highest damage in the game.

you forget the Solarion abilities and look at weapons.

let's do similar lvl 20 weapons and making use of all abilities each class can offer. Solarion does higher average damage with weapon, the bonus damage is not going to switch that to soldiers favor.

max Solarion is 54 average damage before bonus

max soldier using similar 2hd weapon averages 48

the Solarion gets solar acceleration which makes guard stepping away means nothing.

so always 3 attacks against significantly fewer attacks.

Solarion also gets a slightly better hit chance

I mathed this all out but website logged me out while I checked my work.

this sounds to me like too many people are focused too heavily on trying to meta build or power game. has it occurred to anyone that maybe each class is supposed to have some kind of shortcoming?

The solarian class is fine, some people just want it to be as good at soldiering as a soldier while being good at skills and having all the advantages revelations bring to the table.

this reminds me of a guy who used to be at my tables in college. trying to play rogues like fighters, or getting pissy that his fighter "doesn't have decent saves" like my paladin. yes the guy truly thought that saves should be compared to the only class that adds CHA mod to saves.

Summary - Solarian

Combat/Melee: Potential Best in all classes
Combat/Range: Average to very good - Feat intensive.

Saves: Starts out average and slowly falls behind as they level.

Health: Starts out average for a tank class. Then falls way behind as they level.

Skills: Starts out average for tank class and then most builds fall behind.

Starship Combat: Below Average. Other classes can feel the starship roles easier without giving something up.

Resolve: Average to Poor. CHA, while the "core" class skill, is not really required to be a effective Solarian.

Overall, you can build a Solarian to cover any of it's weak spots. Problem is, doing so, opens up another weak spot.
People look at it's melee damage and go "Solarians are the best for melee damage which makes up for their weakness".
Which then turns the thread into a balancing argument.

I personally think the Solarains could use a few minor tweaks -
Making the CHA modifier a more effective skill for Solarians, some how.
Getting 6 skill ranks per level instead of 4. (argument that it's a tank class and the Soldier is limited to just 4 also, the Soldier also has access to Armor and Weapons the Solarian would need to burn feats to get access too. Plus there's all the extra feats soldiers get.)

everyone says Solarion fall behind later levels that's not what I see.

you see it as a tank. I see it as a super durable DPS.

hp? you are tanky not the tank. let the tank do his job.

Saves? do they really ALL need to be good as opposed to focusing on the mandatory ones? are you saying the saves are bad because you cannot out reflex an operative or out Fortitude THE tank? be realistic the saves are fine.

armor? spend the one feat. seriously.

skills. 4+int is good. you are not a skill monkey. do not to pretend to be one. Let the skill monkeys do their job.

starship? again 4+int. pick a role and do it. every class has to give up something skillwise except for the previously mentioned skill monkeys and again I say let them do their job.

resolve? read the Revelations. only a select few require resolve spending and they all revolve around death prevention.

every other class soldier excluded spends resolve like it's going out of style so keying it to the main stat was mandatory. Soldier is not a tank it is THE tank barely spends resolve other than on a few abilities and not dying. it's core stat is it's kill stat. soldier also runs perfect on max Str or Dex and Con and Wis secondary neglecting the rest or at least boosting Dex to keep pace with armor Dex cap.

your summary of the Solarion was a complaint that it can't be highest DPS and match the tank at tanking and match the skill monkeys with skills and still maintain amazing saves across the board

understand the class man

this sounds to me like too many people are focused too heavily on trying to meta build or power game. has it occurred to anyone that maybe each class is supposed to have some kind of shortcoming?

well here's the thing. and please correct me if I am mistaken, I am just reading up on the game setting now as I bought the CRB and AA last week.

to my understanding the books never say how much matter gets pulled to the drift with each jump only that longer jump = more matter. so a short jump might be a pebble for all we know while a large jump might be a larger rock. The books also state you cannot access the drift with magic. it never says something cannot escape it. so a more powerful entity could be hanging around doing extraplanar things when suddenly BAM he is in what appears to be a heap of planar junk. he gives an irritated sigh then plane shifts home.

as for the matter these planes are massive places it's not like these jumps are creating any noticable damage because if they were the other gods would have dealt with the triune a long time ago and been done with it. the last time a god like being went to nom all reality the gods shut that down quick and did everything in their power to keep it down.

all in all if the immortal omnipotent beings aren't worried about it then neither should your good aligned murderhobos

Running through RotRL and the DM is restricting us to CRB, UM, UC, and APG. I'm not sure if I am just not capable of seeing the big picture but as a straight sorcerer it seems I am getting screwed on magic equipment. Is there anything that would work in benefit of a 5th level sorc that isn't just wands rods and potions. With a focus in spell crafting keep in mind I'm paying half and coming in at a +14

Current gold total is 12,500