Unithralith's page

Alright, I've had a preliminary read-through of the Starfinder rules, and so far, there is quite a bit I like. There is one thing that has perplexed me a bit though. When looking at Mind Thrust and the Cure Wounds spells, I thought to myself "oh okay, they're embracing the 5th edition D&D idea of scaling spells up strictly with higher spell slots". After I read through more spells though, it became clear that was more the exception than the rule. When I look at low level damage spells, particularly Magic Missile, I just cannot see a character using it at high levels.

The lowest BAB in the game is medium, and by the time you're level 10, a decent pistol is going to be doing 3d6 + 5 (avg. 15.5). Magic Missile would deal 1d4 +1 x 2, for an average of 7. Granted, you need to roll to hit with the pistol, but even so, the damage difference between a weapon attack and a damaging spell here (which requires expenditure of resources in the form of spell slots) is staggering. You could also potentially fire said pistol twice, potentially increasing the gap even more against low AC targets.

I guess one could argue that you should just swap out your damage spells for something else at higher level, but that just feels like lazy design to me. Am I missing something here? Is there some redeeming factor I've overlooked?

Alright, I should lead off by saying that my friends and I are very experienced players. This is the first time we've had to ask a question on these forums.

I seem to have reached an impasse with my soon-to-be Gamemaster when it comes to the combination of the Conductive weapon property and Alchemist bombs.

The Conductive property states:

"A conductive weapon is able to channel the energy of a spell-like or supernatural ability that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target (such as from a cleric's domain granted power, sorcerer's bloodline power, oracle's mystery revelation, or wizard's arcane school power). When the wielder makes a successful attack of the appropriate type, he may choose to expend two uses of his magical ability to channel it through the weapon to the struck opponent, which suffers the effects of both the weapon attack and the special ability."

My argument is as follows:

- Bombs are a Supernatural ability, as specified in the Alchemist ability description
- Bombs rely on a ranged touch attack to hit a target
- Therefore, you can expend bombs using the Conductive property

My GM's argument is as follows:

- The creation of the bomb is the supernatural ability. Throwing a bomb uses the Throw Splash Weapon special attack, and the bomb is in all ways considered a thrown splash weapon after it's creation.
- The bomb ability specifies "Bombs are considered weapons and can be selected using feats such as Point-Blank Shot and Weapon Focus."
- Therefore, if they are a weapon, they are not a Supernatural ability, and the Conductive property does not function for them.

He may be right, but the rules are unclear. I think the sticking point is in the usage of the word "relies" in the Conductive weapon property. I would certainly say that splash weapons rely on ranged touch attacks seeing as you're required to make one in order to hit, and splash weapon or not, the ability specifies that it's Supernatural. Conductive doesn't specifically prohibit splash weapons.

I am interested to hear others weigh in on this. I freely admit that I am probably biased, since this is my character concept we're talking about.