Search Posts
I'm going to get my bet on the books here, and predict that it's the Starship Playtest for Starfinder, and that they'll be demoing at Unplugged, I don't have any direct reason to think so beyond the fact that announcement being in this blog post suggests it could be related to convention things and that Starfinder's official release (and therefore the date the core book has to go to the printers) is inching closer, and the class playtest has been going for quite a while now.
Interestingly, it makes them stronger, since rolling with Mythic Proficiency makes the math much more favorable for the PC. Imprisonment in particular is probably far better for it's intended use case. Well, sort of, you still want the high level ability modifier (ideally primary, with your apex) for the skill and an item boost.
Interestingly, it makes them stronger, since rolling with Mythic Proficiency makes the math much more favorable for the PC. Imprisonment in particular is probably far better for it's intended use case.
When they eventually look at doing a Pathfinder 3e, I'd straight up be in support of them deleting attack roll spells as a concept and expressing existing ones as saves (or inverting saves into defenses to mirror AC, the load bearing part is the damage on a miss.) Not because of Spellstrike or Sure Strike, just in general.
I'm going again this year! It'll be nice seeing Paizo there. The announcement is tantalizing, since we already got an Impossible Lands Lost Omens, so I'm curious what it actually is.
Oh yeah, totally my reaction to this announcement was to up a Starfinder Subscription starting with this, I am much excite, just meme-ing.
April 2025, so before the Core Book... can we technically say these are the first Starfinder 2e ancestries?
It buffed them, since it means you roll the main check with mythic proficiency--- which makes something like Imprison way better.It is only a buff if your table is (or will be) using Mythic rules. It is otherwise not feasible for any other table because the old rituals don't exist now. Given the plot coupon nature of Imprisonment, and the fact that it's already uncommon, I kinda think this is small potatoes as obstacles go? If someone raises to the GM that they want access to imprisonment, and the GM agrees they like the idea, I can see the GM giving them access to this one mythic option. That's even assuming the GM minds them using the CRB version that wasn't mythic when it's pointed out to them, and agrees it counts as invalidating the CRB version in the first place-- as opposed to only counting if the Mythic Rules are actually in play. I'm more interested in the better math for when you *can* use it, rather than the shift from needing GM's Permission to use it to needing GM's Permission to use it.
It buffed them, since it means you roll the main check with mythic proficiency--- which makes something like Imprison way better.
I think Explosion of Power deserves a mention, being able to add up to a max rank fireball's worth of damage around you in a turn on top of your regular blasting. D'oh, that is incredible, should have looked at the new blood magics more carefully, its def going in.
That last line of your post is the concern, if I'm telling someone "hey for your damage, elemental toss is better" but it turns out to raise TTK on the boss overall for like a major subset of party configurations, that's not advice I'm interested in giving. Especially since it's not how I think about the game when I'm optimizing and engaging my build sense because I wouldn't be willing to leave that DPR increase on the table for the sake of personal DPR.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, I update slowly, but I'll take it into account. The baseball thing-- I can do another pass on simplifying or explaining the references, but I have to admit my favorite optimization guides always had fun conceits like this, so it's def staying, and I know liking baseball isn't that important to grokking the guide due to some test readings I've done: people who don't know baseball are generally still picking up on the concepts as explained here, they just tend to look at the baseball references and say "huh I don't know baseball and have a preliminary expectation that it'll confuse me" but if you ask them to guess what's meant by something, they get it. Also because I'm not a 'proper-baseball' fan myself, the game is cool but I don't follow it, the concept of small ball when I learned about it was just a very cool metaphor, that makes the guide a lot of fun to read for my target audience, and it's always been in the air here where I lived. Some specific stuff, in no particular order: There is a lot of discussion about magic missile, but you don't mention the number one thing! Bonuses to damage are 'per target' so if you spread out the missiles you get the damage bonus against each target (this is confirmed by Logan Bonner here). Said magic missile sorcerer at L8 can cast a L5/3 action magic missile for 6 missiles to 6 targets for 1d4+7 to each. Its like turning the spell into a weird mini AOE that can be great for clearing out some cannon fodder after someone softened them up with a fireball. I actually thought this was intuitive and only explained how to get the damage bonus on the same target because that's a rule that effectively needs to be bypassed, and I figured it was more implicit when someone read that section, I can def write a bit more on it though. A blaster guide without going through any math (pick TTK, DPR, etc.) isn't providing enough supporting information for the claims in it. People need some concrete examples and bench marking to know what good blasting looks like otherwise there is no frame of reference to understand how something like demoralize + fireball stands vs. elemental toss + fireball. I think other guides, like a class guide can get away without it because there are many qualitative feats or action compression feats that aren't as easy to assess. But blasting has very defined outputs that can be compared. I thought the breakdown of die faces against a +3 moderate save was carrying this load since it does discuss how things change as you adjust the target-defense. Perhaps I could add more about how it intersects with enemy HP? As for Demoralize vs. Elemental Toss, I would need a simulator on the order of World of Warcraft's Mr. Robot to work that one out and I can eyeball that the math looks way different in different parties, and with different numbers of allies, never-mind AC vs. Will. I'd rather settle for encouraging the player to do either as a good third action. On important thing about damage is that 1 point of damage at round 1 is not equivalent to 1 point of damage at round 2. Unless you face a single enemy you should aim at quickly reducing the number of enemies. Considering the short average length of fights (it's variable depending on level but it's roughly 3-4 rounds), 1 point of damage at round 1 is much closer to 2 points of damage at round 2, 4 at round 3 and 8 at round 4. As such Sustain spells are only useful for bosses. Same goes for Persistent damage: unless you face a boss, you can consider that one point of Persistent damage is equivalent to 1 point of direct damage. So, I did address this, partially in the Big Innings/AOE section which explains why I'm focused on single target damage for the rest of the guide. But also, I think it's a little different-- damage is damage until the boss is actually dead and the rest doesn't matter until it constitutes overkill and even then you don't have fine tune enough control over when a fight ends for it to generally be sensible to hold back on resources in late rounds unless you're like, party-first in initiative. Using sustain spells in non-boss encounters is good for a different reasons; namely, it's a resource saver, you pop them and then don't spend any more spell slots for the rest of the fight. Sorcerous Potency is not the same name as dangerous sorcery. RAW the sorcerer got a buff by freeing up a L2+ feat slot, but other classes can still grab it. Things are only 'replaced' if they have the same name, which these don't (perhaps there is a FAQ/remaster conversion guide where this was clarified as the intent, but I haven't seen one yet). Hmm, don't know why I wrote that, nice catch. Even though it's a blasting guide, IMO the lack of mention for spells like Floating Flame, Illusory Creature, Spirit Weapon, Rouse Skeletons, etc, is a small blind spot. Due to slots being a serious resource, and due to sustain being a 1A that's compatible with 2A casts, the role of sustain spells deserved a mention, even if it's to say "sorry, but they are too hard to keep active, and don't do enough to justify slotting them in the first place." I could have SWORN it was in the pitch count section as a strategy for saving spell slots. Also curious what you think of cantrip plinking. "Don't."
I saw some people talking about new Fighter feats. Did any other classes get additional feats, outside of class archetypes? Yes, the Avenger Class Archetype section has a little section stapled onto the end that provides two spear feats for the Rogue Ranger AND Fighter.
At that point, you've got a signpost encounter for the martials and buff spells to shine given that it spent it's whole mythic budget that way, but if you must blast it down with magic, you're still working with your success effects, or perhaps humorously for the way these discussions normally go, Spell Attacks which aren't subject to Resilience.
Heh, this book is sick and im already looking at how to integrate it into my game. For one thing, im thinking of following the recommendation to open up the destinies as normal high level archetypes sans mythic point feats. But I'm also looking at possibly using mythic spell scrolls that count as spending a mythic point when the scroll is consumed, and possibly looting the 1-10 mythic feats section to turn them into high level gear things with bespoke recharge rates to produce a free archetype compatible half-mythic. My head is spinning woth possibilities, but its a great book, the destinies and class archetypes are in particular well executed (whoever wrote prophesized monarch in particular deserves a hand) and a lot of players are going to be thrilled with even nonmythic wildspell. Warrior of Legend is especially cool too and I got my specific wish for greatsword avengers (but also, the dual woeld polearm support for rogues/ rangers/fighters!?) Ive barely looked at the classes so far! Even with my excitement for the animist.
Any regular Archetype ? (Not Class or Multiclass or Mythic) No, but the book suggests that PCs are welcome to treat the epic destinies as normal high level archetypes in nonmythic games, and tells you to ignore or remove the feats that require you to use mythic points for their effects (each seems to have been given enough non-mythic-point-feat-options to facilitate that.) It looks balanced enough to actually do that to me.
WHY DOES WORK HAVE TO BE QUIET TODAY, LOCALIZED ENTIRELY IN THIS PUBLIC LIBRARY. It's making my "I could technically get it at any time" brainrot so much worse ^_^
Yeah, seems like the best of both worlds then, now to see if our existing Free Archetype game is too cluttered to throw Mythic into the game somehow as I get my sub copy, hopefully on the sooner side of the sipping window. I'm so excited.
Mythic Lava Otters
Summoner Class Archetype that increases your number of Eidolon Bodies and lets you launch volleys of magic blasts from them, with a flurry playstyle. They'd still share your health pool and actions and share MAP, but I'd want it to have a focus spell that replaces Boost Eidolon and lets them launch their volley with reduced MAP but action intensively. I'm thinking that it'd split your eidolon into 3 to 6 total bodies, possibly scaling up at higher levels.
I am so excited for WOI
I'd be tempted to say they need a horizontally wider array of tags that tell you *why* something is uncommon, rather than just that it is, at a glance. Like, to highlight the difference between "Uncommon in-case you were trying to do a murder mystery it would break"
You'd have to maybe distill those into tags, but its admittedly kind of messy because up front it wasn't applied evenly to begin with. Like, Bags of Holding are common, even though I'd expect them to be uncommon for campaigns that want transporting things to be harder.
I've seen first hand that generally the challenge is in spreading out healing-- focusing one person generally makes healing easier on Team Pc, you have to get the healer to make hard choices.
One thing I have sort of realized is that in addition to the lore reasons a dragon or something might want to simply swat at different targets all the time, double tapping a PC is generally a more effective strategy for killing PCs, but isn't a hugely helpful strategy for winning the fight, since it generally costs actions you could have spent trying to down someone else, and focusing the damage on one person makes healing *easier* for team PC, due to the relative efficacy of like, two-action heal/soothe and the way that it simplifies the choice of whether that person should use a shield. It can work, but the death spiral has to outpace Team PC's remaining damage output, which is a pretty big burden on the boss's action economy.
becomes easierCan become easier. The only consistently available option is Breath of Life which doesn't work on death effects. That's between you and your buddies.
I do feel obliged to point out that most of the actual death effects and PWK and whatnot come online as bringing characters back from the dead becomes easier.
Which to be clear, means you can right now, rip a Starfinder Laser gun out of the 2e playtest rulebook, and let your Pathfinder 2e characters use them.Granted, unless the GM gives you access to a means of recharging the Laser gun's power cells... you'll have to make ever shot count. I was assuming that a GM adding these things to the game is pricing in tge availability of batteries, lol.
Which to be clear, means you can right now, rip a Starfinder Laser gun out of the 2e playtest rulebook, and let your Pathfinder 2e characters use them.
A character like that is always going to have a lower Armor Class than they actually need to be a proper frontliner, though. You're deliberately nerfing yourself with no benefit, since you could just wear light armor and still get no speed penalty. A -1 or -2 net to AC is pretty punishing, and just because you can play it doesn't mean it's supported. Wait, light armor, or no armor? Because my interpretation here is that we're talking about maxing the dex cap of a light armor.
The character with a big weapon but light armor is such a common and iconic fictional archetype it still kind of boggles me that Paizo has yet to provide any support for it. They have, haven't they? A Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian/etc. with primary strength and secondary dexterity can just do it for higher reflex, they can dodge penalty to their speed and really maximize their carry weight.
I'm really hoping that they made Sneak Attack with weapons you wouldn't normally be able to use sneak attack with dependent on Hunt Prey, so that we can have Bastard Sword Avenger Rogues, as opposed to say, just blocking out those kinds of weapons.
The biggest thing for my group is that it suits our setting better, so it's a weird little bit of pressure off my creative shoulders, and it smoothed things out in favor of world-building I was already doing to make things more about creation and destruction as forces to replace good and evil, and the fact that in the end I didn't have much use for the law/chaos axis. Perhaps more importantly, spirit damage-- the implications are still sort of trickling in, but its just a much stronger concept than previous iterations of alignment damage, and keys into the meta much better-- you still have very specialized spells that only effect certain targets, but the generic spirit damage, and the ability to make it holy or unholy via sanctification feels way better. It makes most builds that previously would have used alignment damage, makes them way less niche to the types of enemy they face. My favorite example of this is Its a very strong spell, and it'll largely pierce resistance/immunity to fire, which is a strong conceptual archetype for like, holy and unholy flame attacks in media. The Champion is similarly way less curtailed in their actual play, partially because of the shift toward neutral causes, but also because they rely more heavily on god selection for their morality-- it becomes very easy to to tilt things to accommodate your desired play-style by interpreting the base cause edicts/anathema in light of the deity ones, what they value, what they object to.
I'm really looking forward to this particular book, a lot of stories feature very 'person' oriented antagonists.
Working on my Tanuki Ranger, uses a bandolier of dueling pistols for at least the first few levels, followed by a Tripod Barricade Buster (courtesy of a house ruled level 6 advanced weapon feat) but the real piece-de-resistance is that it's heavily based on Unexpected Sharpshooter-- launching Precision Gravity Weapon Accidental Shots, having a jacked Deception, with all the fixings and eventually following it up with Dandy Dedication. The hard part is that the Tanuki have too many amazing feats-- I'm straight torn between each thing I can do.
My Watch Has Ended, Go In Peace
My Watch Continues
These weapons do likely exist in the Lost Omens setting-- Numeria is a thing, lest we forget.
I think it'd be fine if the Soldier picked up some additional support for conventional laser rifles and such in a subclass-- I think it would be a better fit for the model they're using than the erudite soldier is, honestly, that subclass doesn't need to exist and what it does would be better off being achieved by a feat line-- while the subclass stays oriented to 'what weapon do you use' I'd theme it as a kind of combat marksman role, where enemies are suppressed by a long range gun steadily trained on them rather than a barrage of fire, I think it could essentially turned suppressed into a ranged version of the Justice Champion Reaction? Base suppressed benefits, but then also you can shoot them if they attack an ally? Otherwise, I think it's just a 'core book' problem, since we're not getting THAT MANY weapons with automatic or area, compared to what we'll probably have a year or two after launch-- they feel too specialized, but the more these weapon traits are used, the less specialized the soldier will come across.
I was thinking about this, gap closing is just a matter of speed ad movement oriented action compression-- a lot of the PF melee classes can do it well already if they're conscious of it when building their character, tools like sudden charge, which effectively let you move three times and launch an attack are key here, and then it just gets better as fast movement class features, boots of bounding and such, or beastmaster type stuff for a mount come online. The key is that doing it on a Starfinder class should require less preplanning, I'd replace Nimbus Surge entirely in the Solarion's Base chassis with Stellar Rush from the list of level 1 feat-- let your nimbus allow you to slip through space-time to go fast or take on some of the speed qualities of light, the extra four squares of movement would do a lot and you'd almost always double move as a gap closer anyway-- and as far as I can tell, every subclass is meant to be close range. Meanwhile, the Operative and the Soldier both need gap closing feats as level 1 feat options along the lines of sudden charge to support their melee options, and ideally, we need a base armor upgrade that can offer an item bonus to speed to go with the level 1 armor upgrade slots. I suggest they be themed as hover rollerblades like shadow the hedgehog. As for flight, I'd be tempted to just drop the level of the base jetpack upgrade-- if you play a flying ancestry you don't have to worry about managing it against other upgrades.
I've very excited for this book, I've got two characters lined up already: - An unfurling brocade Magus, gonna use Intelligent Weapon from Battlezoo, and be a cursed sword that attacks with the seal wrappings on it, basically protecting my wielder who is totally gonna be descended from a family that has me in their safekeeping. - Tanuki Ranger, we have a houserule level 6 advanced weapo ntraining feat for every class, so I'm going to have them take a barricade buster and mount it on a tripod, then flurry people with my standing turret, and keep a backup weapon on hand to whip out whenever necessary, it's a very cool aesthetic I've got in mind... assuming I don't choose to use them to playtest the starfinder soldier instead.
I do think Aim has to stay but not in its current form. Aim's damage is just insane for a class that already has the best accuracy in the system. This is not a matter of "Aim compensates not adding a modifier to damage" because a fighter, the strongest martial in terms of DPS in PF2e, doesn't have a single damage steroid and, at best, adds a +7 to their damage ignoring weapon specialization. An operative, however, by 9th level would be dealing an extra 7.5 points of damage in average or 7 at 5th level if you take Devastating Aim. Not to mention Aim also ignores cover, thus you'll be even more accurate than a fighter or gunslinger in the same situation.Aim would be fine if they had normal martial progression. I feel like it's really easy for Rogue's to get Sneak Attack super often for virtually no action cost, even disregarding this feat. a lot of enemies will happily stay in flank to keep attacking or using their action hungry abilities, or to avoid AOE, so you'd spend one action to move into position and then sit there all day every day.
To me, it brings to mind a question: Is Aim Patching some kind of perceived problem, or is Aim meant to define the operative's game play? My sense is that they want you to aim and strike as often as possible as the feel of playing the class, with some other options for situational turns, in the same way that Spellstrike's rigid action economy makes it feel different to play than the fighter. I think you can end up with bland from having too much flexibility on too many classes.
One big thing adding to this-- Pathfinder often assumes melee and then adds specific options to ungate ranged, like Raging Thrower and Flying Blade and Starlit Span. Starfinder classes appear to usually assume ranged and then uses options to ungate melee, like Close Quarters Soldier and Striker Operative. In Pathfinder this creates a natural flow toward melee options because you frequently have to spend a resource to get ranged and might want a different benefit at that feat/subclass fork. But in Starfinder, the openness runs the other way where it's melee you have to buy the special privilege to use your features with.
Right now, pre-playing it, I think Operative is too much, and that Aim should fall off after the first successful hit of the turn-- that's the smallest nerf I'd make, and I'd probably take away options for 'free' aim, as well. I badly want to make sure my players don't feel punished for playing Pathfinder classes in Starfinder. One route I'd consider is giving it two fall off conditions: 1. First Success or Crit Success on an attack.
That gives it some novel play in terms of being able to get it on a reaction attack, if you didn't manage to get a hit in, and possibly even lets you manipulate action economy to put it up again if you hit fast, but I think you need to always, or almost always be paying an action for each time the d4s/d6s occur... unless the operative gets it's attack prof bumped down. If it has to stay as gameable as it is now, it would need to become something like "Precision Damage Equal to the Number of Weapon Damage Dice" to balance it.
So we were discussing this-- there's some oddities here, a lot of weapon adjustments that don't take a rune in PF take an upgrade slot here e.g. if you want a bipod you have to use an upgrade slot for it, and OTOH it matches Orichalcum, which, since rarity isn't used for balance, is supposed to be kosher alongside 3 slots-- I guess part of the reasoning is that at the end of the day an extra 3-4 damage on average isn't a whole lot at level 19? I have a friend who has a pretty good point that Paizo perhaps considers precious material equivalent to a rune slot, so since you don't get precious material tech, maybe the extra slot is supposed to be the replacing benefit. The only issue is with that reasoning is that while that's the benefit of orichalcum, I don't recall other precious materials stacking up that way.
It used to in a field test but that was unpopular, so now I think the archaic trait is just "Use Runes for this Instead of Upgrades" mechanically, and I believe there was word they might reincorporate it as a rules variant.
The intersection of my planning, and my roleplaying, and the right situation creates moments that have a certain vibe to them that I can feel inside and feel immersed in. That could be a good roleplaying moment where I connect well with my roleplaying partners to produce a sense of energy we can both feel, or a moment where my plan comes together in a fight and I push through something and feel really elite. In mechanics, it can be things like the feeling I get when I bring down a big boss by blasting it over and over, with the successes and failures stacking up (or deterministically cutting it down over a few rounds with) and finally bringing it down, the relieved payoff of the effort of it all, or the feeling of putting my will against a boss monster's when I step in and heal someone for the massive amount of damage they just took. It can be putting forward a challenge, a bet, they can't refuse and surviving the heat to crit them back on my barbarian, it can be a decisive moment where I push an NPC or execute a scheme. Fun for me, is a broad word for a collection of engaging experiences that get my blood moving and where I feel immersed in the world of the game or connected to other people, the more areas I can do that in the better.
well, its clearly intended to work based off the flavor text, so I'd allow your son to do it and just note that the rules need to be adjusted to accommodate it as your first piece of actual feedback. |
