![]() ![]()
The effect on XP is interesting. If your PCs manage to pull some shenanigans and use a mech where they weren't intended to, they will fall behind in level, making things harder down the line. Conversely, a party that manages to win a mech battle without a mech could wind up being greatly rewarded for it. ![]()
Alternate class feature: Wondrous Transformation
This one's a doozy. It might be overpowered I don't know, but I had fun writing this up. Rather than focusing on the specific benefits of unique fields of study, you develop a biohack tailored to your own physiology, capable of creating a unique transformation. The cosmetic effects of this transformation vary wildly between biohackers. Your body may sprout additional limbs, gain new organs, and even change size and shape completely, though you have the sense to modify your equipment so that it remains useable in both forms. You may transform yourself as a standard action, granting the following benefits:
You select additional benefits for your transformation at each odd level, including first. Transforming takes a standard action and consumes all remaining uses of your biohack class feature. You cannot use the hideous transformation if you have no uses of the biohack class feature remaining. The transformation lasts 3 rounds +1 for each biohack consumed.
Alleles: select an allele at each odd biohacker level. These are abilities available to you only while transformed into your hideous transformation. 1st Level: these alleles can be selected at first level onward
Resistant skin: gain energy resistance 5 to 2 types of energy that stack with up to 1 other source
Survival instinct: Once per day, When you are reduced to 0 hit points, continue acting normally until the end of your next turn, then fall unconscious. If you take additional damage before this, fall unconscious immediately. Sticky ooze: As a standard action, target a 5 foot radius within 30 feet. That area becomes difficult terrain. At 10th level, this becomes a 10 foot radius. 7th level: these genes are available from 7th level onward Pheremone cloud: As a standard action, you can release a cloud of pheremones within a 30 foot radius around you. All enemy creatures within the radius must move toward you to the extent they are able if they fail a will saving throw. Once a creature has been exposed to the pheremone, it is immune to this ability for 24 hours. Breath weapon: gain a breath weapon that deals 1d8 damage per 2 biohacker levels in a 15 ft cone. (reflex save half) Select the type of energy damage it deals when you transform. You may use this ability once every 1d4 rounds. Extreme adaptation: As long as you are transformed, you are immune to environmental effects of extreme cold, extreme heat, radiation, and vacuum Heightened awareness: gain +1 to reflex saves and become unflankable.
Radioactive: You emit an aura of low-level radiation while transformed. Creaturese within 10 feet of you must succeed at a fortitude save or become sickened. this condition ends once they are more than 10 ft from you. Grasping tentacle: Your natural weapon gains the reach and grab properties.
15th level:
Evolve biotech: As long as you are transformed, gain one biotech augmentation with item level equal to or less than your biohacker level in any system you do not have an augmentation installed. You may select this augmentation again each time you transform. Quantum Tunneling: You can phase through up to 15 feet of solid material as a full action. As a reaction, you can gain concealment against any nonmagical attack that does not have the force descriptor Terrifying Visage: Gain the frightful presence ability with a range of 30 feet and a will save DC equal to your class ability DC. (10 + ½ biohacker level + KAS modifier).
![]()
Theorems:
Gene splicing(2nd level +): If you have a creature companion, you can perform a surgery to grant it one of the following abilities: blindsense (any) 60 ft, +10 ft land speed, 30 ft fly speed, 30 ft swim speed, 30 ft burrowing speed. This surgery requires at least 4 hours uninterrupted work and at least 8 hours rest for the creature modified. This ability can be swapped for another if the surgery is performed again. A given creature companion cannot have more than one of these benefits at a time. Chemical reactions(2nd level +):The compounds used to create biohacks can also be mixed so as to create volatile reactions. You can use one of your uses of the biohacks as a standard action to instead create and throw a special grenade that deals 1d8 acid or fire damage per 2 biohacker levels in a radius of 15 feet. The save DC for this grenade is as the DC for theorems.
Advanced Gene splicing (8th level +): If you have an animal companion, you can perform a surgery to grant it one special ability as if it were another species of animal companion, in addition to its normal abilities. This surgery requires at least 4 hours of uninterrupted work and at least 8 hours rest for the creature modified following. The ability granted can be swapped for another if the surgery is performed again. A given creature cannot have more than one of these benefits at a time. You must have the gene splicing theorem to select this feature. Poison mastery (14th Level+):
Cambrian Explosion:
![]()
Since COM was released, all the new stuff for the core classes can't help but make the new classes feel a little thin by comparison. I've been brainstorming how the COM treatment would look for the 3 newer classes, specifically the biohacker, and thought I would share what I have so far here for the enjoyment and input of this forum. Just an exercise for me having fun, but I've got new theorems, new fields of study, and even an alternate class feature mapped out. I'll split them up into multiple posts. Design goals:
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: This Homebrew has not been tested in game. It may be hazardous to the balance of your game. Please consult your GM to see if the following homebrew is right for you. Let's start with the fields of study. I have 3 Fields of Study: Performance Enhancement:
Psychoactivation:
Mutation:
![]()
I would add for races that any with a racial bonus to medicine is worth considering when starting at level 1, as dc 25 medicine checks can be difficult to make then. This includes shirren with individual obsession, ramiyels, and ghorans. Also, I'm not sure about the statement that crafted poisons gain +2 DC. I suspect this came from the core rulebooks statement that crafted items treat their level as higher for saving throws. I believe this refers to instances where an ability targets a piece of equipment (i.e. mechanic's overcharge ability), not saves made against the equipment. At any rate, this would be shaky for poison DCs anyway since their DC is not determined by item level but the poisons own stat block. ![]()
I'd actually be kind of interested in seeing a one-arm race. We have contemplatives already, who can't wield 2-handed weapons very well, but they still have 2 arms. Hopefully they'd have some other powerful abilities to balance it out, since cybernetic arms aren't cheap. Then again, if you were building a level 20 character you could cheaply (for level 20) go from one arm to 3 and the limitation would be meaningless. It's probably best for starfinder if character species remains mostly a flavor choice with a few cool abilities. ![]()
I think the issue here is not can I have the biotech/cybernetic, but how it would function if I do. In the case of vlaka, for example, their racial trait essentially gives them the blinded condition. A blind vlaka with a wide spectrum ocular implant would be in the same situation as a human with the same augment that got temporarily blinded by an environmental/enemy effect, the only difference being their blindness is permanent. ![]()
Thought I'd list out the spells mystics can increase duration to 24 hours using the lingering spell epiphany by connection to see which connections benefit the most from this ability. hour/level spells don't really make much difference (actually worse than doubling duration after level 12), so they are excluded. I'm including concentration up to 1 minute/level spells, assuming the duration could be expended if concentration could be maintained. Your mileage (and your GM's) may vary. Crusader: reflecting armor (still ends when dismissed), Death Ward, Resistant Aegis, Resistant Armor, greater Devastator: Carnivorous Empath: Detect thoughts, Zone of Truth, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance (remote stakeout!), Telepathy, True Seeing Geneturge: detect augmentation, Spider Climb Hive Mind: Share language, Status Melophile: Clairaudience/Clairvoyance Shadow: Shadow Body Shaper: grease Star Shaman: Darkvision Warmonger: resistant armor, resistant aegis Xenodruid: Fog Cloud Empath can do some very interesting things with this epiphany. 24 hour remote stakeouts with clairvoyance, True seeing/telepathy all day. Detect thoughts could be good if concentration spells are allowed, and zone of truth could let you enforce a "no lying on the ship" policy by recasting every day. The only other one jumping out at me is shadow for shadow body. Cast once and reap the benefits all day. Crusader isn't bad either, but there are other ways to get energy resistance. That being said, there are some other options. There could be interesting uses for a day-long fog or grease puddle. Though the fog could still be blown away. ![]()
Weapons of war seems like a good secondary connection power for anyone using high-level attack-roll spells like dominate person, feeblemind, and flesh to stone. Use your move and standard action, burn a 1st level spell slot, (which don't have much use in combat at that point), and substantially reduce the risk of wasting a high level spell slot from a wasted attack roll. If I'm not mistaken, a Devastator mystic could achieve the highest bonus to hit by combining weapons of war with blood mark and greater blood mark, capping out at +23 before ability score modifiers, weapon focus, etc. You could even stack destructive frenzy on top of this for up to +4 more using a 6th level spell slot, but this locks you out of using that attack for spells or weapons other than small arms and basic melee. Unfortunately, since weapons of war is an insight bonus, it does not stack with the +4 insight bonus to attack rolls from mystics' level 20 ability. ![]()
Witchwarper's 2nd level spell slot infinite worlds damage per round option doesn't do a whole lot of damage, but... It provides a safe, reliable way for shimreen allies (or a shimreen witchwarper, I guess?) to use their amplify racial ability. With the base racial electrical resistance of 5/, they take 2 + 1d4 damage each round, doing no damage except on a roll of 4, and add the d4 to their next melee attack. Additional infinite worlds effects can help keep the target confined to this electrified area. ![]()
Nym Moondown wrote:
War. War never changes. ![]()
There is a general rule, though it took until alien archive 2 for it to be written, it seems. P. 4 of Alien archive 2 under "Racial Traits and Alien PCs" "While there is a preponderance of nonhumanoid aliens with strange morphology, all playable alien races are considered to have two hands for the purposes of holding or wielding weapons and other equipment (unless otherwise noted)." ![]()
It goes against the way people usually build these characters, but the fouling reposition feat works well with the Duck Under envoy improvisation, which lets you reposition at +8 as a reaction on a missed melee attack. This requires total defense, but total defense is only a standard action (could have sworn it was a full action) This frees your move action for get 'em, brace yourselves, etc. ![]()
On the subject of caster's that don't use spell slots, I've always looked for ways to build a solarian more focused on revelations than tanking/melee damage, and they tend to look weaker. A counterpart class to the solarian that loses solarians high BAB for stronger revelation like abilities would be neat. If anyone else played star wars knights of the old republic, I'm talking about a "Jedi Consular"(focus on training force powers) to the solarian's "Jedi Guardian"(focus on lightsaber mastery). ![]()
With COM's addition of alternate class features, it's difficult to think of character types that couldn't be tooled as an alternate class feature, archetype, or other additional build option. I'm most excited about the possibility for alternate/additional features for biohacker, though I'm not sure what you could replace. If you replace biohacks, most other class features don't work. Still, a biohacker equivalent to the exocortex and drone mechanic options could be really cool flavor-wise if nothing else, focusing on personal biotech type augments or a custom chimera creature companion. I suppose there's room to support this somewhat through theorem choices. For example, a theorem that lets you DNA splice a creature companion to give it the abilities of a different creature companion. As it is, I feel like biohacker could be so much more than "guy who shoots people with needles" Not sure what you would replace them with, but alternate features for vanguard and witchwarper would be easier to do. Replacing entropic strike and infinite worlds with some other mechanic still fitting the flavor of the class would be a big enough difference while still letting the character fundamentally feel like the base class. ![]()
In many combats, I've found that after the first round most players and npcs tend to stay put behind cover and shoot their ranged weapons. For most classes, this frees up their move action and lets them full attack. Spellcasters, however, have very few spells that have full actions to cast. Assuming we want to cast a spell as a standard action, what are we to do with our move action if we are already in a good position? COM and Alien archive 3 have added some new options. Most will need to be thought of in building and leveling a character, however, as they require feats or skills. As a move action, our spellcaster could -Align a shield (requires shield proficiency)
There are some class-specific abilities that can be performed as a move action, too, but what else did I miss? ![]()
Regarding naming conventions, the contemplative in Dead suns 2 had a name like Ailabiens 21:32, (probably not quite right) which was explained to be a citation by his favorite author, and that this was the typical naming convention for contemplatives. Taking that in a slightly different direction, I always wanted to make a contemplative character obsessed with mathematics that had an equation for a name. "hello stranger, what's your name" *telepathically beams a bunch of math into person's brain* "but you can call me "cauchy-schwarz inequality" for short." ![]()
Megavitamin actually seems better than I thought at first. I would assume (the spell doesn't really outline it) that it could be used as a similiar action to trickling a serum on a downed ally, allowing them to get back up without spending resolve. They last 24 hours, so you could hand them out to your party at the start of the day and anyone could help a downed ally back up. Healing serums do the same, but you don't always have time to buy/craft more when you run out. Heck, give one to your half orc friend and he can just eat a vitamin the first time he goes down and be back at 1 hp. ![]()
Xenocrat wrote:
Don't forget dragon gland requires the enemy make a reflex save, which can be reduced through the pharmacology school (encumber, entangled condition) and coagulant medicinals. ![]()
Mentioned this on another thread talking about a specific envoy grappler build, but shirrens qualify not only for the helpful telepath feat listed in their section, but also the spot of luck feat listed in the gnome section (requires a d20 reroll feat or racial ability and 5th level). This allows them to, once per 10 min rest, with a successful harrying fire attempt (trivial at high levels), allow the next ally attack to roll 3 times and take the best result. Particularly useful if you have a grappler who wants to go for broke on trying to pin a target, or a spellcaster casting a big spell that requires an attack roll, such as dominate person or disintegrate. This also works the same for the other uses of helpful telepath (skill check reroll on aid another, attack reroll and take worse on enemy for covering fire). This works well for any shirren character using a ranged weapon regardless of class. Envoys taking the fire support or superior covering fire options could potentially do slightly better at high levels since they can harry/cover two targets. ![]()
Xenocrat wrote:
That seems to be the intent. However, "The esotericist grants alternate class features at 2nd, 6th, 9th and 18th levels. These alternate class features are optional. at each of these levels, you can either choose an esotericist alternate class feature...." {COM 99} So, even though you can take the spellshaper feature multiple times, you can't take any esotericist feature at 12th level. You can take it again at 18th, but of course then you cannot take greater spell shaping. If you take greater spell shaping, effectively it just adds 1 use to spell shaping. (since you could only use it with 1 school at most anyway). ![]()
So, the esotericist 9th level ability spell shaping seems like a very powerful ability, well worth the trade of a single feat (or healing touch) for a 9th level mystic. The ability to make a single target spell hit two creatures within 15 feet of one another in particular is very strong in terms of getting 2 spells for one action and using only one spell slot. The range condition is particularly easy to meet for harmless spells (just tell your allies to group up before casting). It does, however, restrict its usage to a single spell school of the player's choice. Let's compare the school choices for a mystic based on the most appealing spells to use the ability with: Divination: it's not just mind thrust, but mostly for mind thrust Mind Thrust (extra target): an obvious choice at any level for the double targeting option. Realizing mind thrust is actually a divination spell made me want to see what other options the school provides, though, given that most of the other immediately appealing options are enchantment spells.
Transmutation:
Conjuration:don't overlook this one
Enchantment:Probably the most versatile options
Necromancy:Not a ton of spells, but the options here are fairly solid
Abjuration:not the best pick of the lot, but if you like buffs, it's okay.
Illusion:I guess if you are already shadow connection, you might pick this
Evocation: Not a mystics strong suit, but could be good at low levels for connection spells in particular.
So it's not just a toss up between divination and enchantment. Transmutation and Necromancy, even conjuration have some appealing possibilities. Did I miss any cool spells to shape? What are the best schools for Technomancer and witchwarper? Gut says transmutation for disintegrating 2 targets. ![]()
Cellion wrote:
I agree. I don't know why it would be broken to eliminate those restrictions while keeping it a single attack standard action. That makes it especially appealing for lower BAB classes that might not want to full attack. (and can do other things with move actions). ![]()
A lot of the good's been mentioned here already. Few people talking about biohacker. Yes, instinctive biohackers don't seem strictly worse now, and that's great, but some of the class's other options from the playtest are just gone. Hopefully we'll get new theorems/fields in the future. There are 19 theorems and 5 fields of study. A pure biohacker who doesn't multiclass or take archetypes will, by level 20, have access to 10 theorems and 3 fields of study, meaning they will experience over half what the class has to offer. I see a lot of particular theorems getting neglected (speedy serums, stable biohacks) so, aside from instinctive vs. studious, most biohackers will probably build the same. ![]()
I find the new maneuver expertise option interesting. It technically provides an envoy with a way to have the single highest bonus to a grapple attempt. There's also the coordinated maneuvers improvisation, which grants a different bonus to an allies maneuver attempt roll. Imagine a pair of tag team wrestlers classed as envoys. A shirren with the new helpful telepath and spot of luck feats, plus the coordinated maneuvers improvisation, and a trox with maneuver expertise to do the actual grabbing.(Bugs that hug!) After the appropriate setup, you could get the best of three rolls with a 1d4 + 1 + expertise on top of other bonuses. At 8th level, when coordinated maneuvers is available, the trox could make a grapple attempt of 6 (base attack) + (5) (20 str) + 1d4+1 (coord maneuvers) + 1d6 + 1 (expertise) + 2 (racial bonus) + 2 (grapple weapon) + 4 (improved combat maneuver) = 20 + 1d4 + 1d6 For comparison, a CR8 combatant has a KAC of 22, meaning a result of 30 is needed to grapple, 35 for a pin. For simplicity's sake, take the average result from the d4 and d6 and combine them (2+3 = 5) for a total bonus of 25. This means a successful grapple on a 5, and a pin on a 10! Lest we forget, we get three rolls to choose from. Rolling under 10 3 times in a row is less than a 12.5% chance. This without applying any debuffs to AC, say from the shaken condition due to combat expertise. For added hilarity, assume we have a biohacker pharmacologist on the team who manages to inflict encumbered and entangled with his biohack. The combined penalty to acrobatics checks is so severe that, once pinned, they will likely never escape. Edit: any corrections to this calculation graciously and humbly accepted. ![]()
David knott 242 wrote:
Core Rule book page 126 "You also cannot add more than one archetype to a specific class."...."If you multiclass and gain a level in a new class, you can add a new archetype to that class when you reach the appropriate level." |