It's a great guide. Thank you for making it.
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Can't go wrong with cleric.
Thanks for the tips.
We've decided to switch things up and play some Starfinder. We've played two campaigns in the past which were ok but in both cases I found my characters under performed. I'm not sure if my expectations are out of whack or I'm missing things. Hitting things is max str/dex (18 at level 1), weapon focus, and then stat augmentations as they become available. Assuming full BAB that's only +30 at level 20 or +26 otherwise. Are there any other bonuses? Otherwise it doesn't seem like the non full BAB classes are any more accurate at 20 than they were at 1. I was looking at trying the Technomancer this time but I'm struggling to get my spells to be successful even 50% of the time. Max out your Int, take Spell focus and... Is there anything else to help with Spell DCs? Combat magic doesn't seem very viable if there's a save attached. Are there items, spells or feats that provide combat buffs? All of the buffs and boosts that made specialists successful in Pathfinder seem to be missing in Starfinder. I'm used to low level characters missing frequently but at high levels if doesn't feel right. Edit: Starting Devastation Ark in a couple weeks.
My group is still playing 1E with no plans to swap. We've played about half of the APs so if we continue at our current pace we're good for another 12 years before we run out of official Pathfinder content.
Name: Theodric Brandybuck
The Gory Details: I always thought this was a boring AP to read but it has been fantastic to run with so many varied and interesting encounters. This was another one. With the Moon Beasts taking shelter behind the stone pot from the sorcerer who was bombarding them with his nukes, Theo advanced upon the beasts without wondering what was in the great pot. He quickly found himself in a lot of trouble. The Spiritualist made an attempt to free him with a Freedom of Movement but poor Theo was engulfed before he could be rescued. Maintaining the legacy of Rogues everywhere, Theo has more deaths than the all of the other party members combined. It's a tough life.
I've spent a couple hundred dollars on the original Herolab and I love it so much its one of the reasons I refuse to move on to PF2. I refuse to buy into their new payment model. I will pay for a subscription OR for content but not both. Until they change it I will never subscribe to Herolab online.
Let's see. Four under-geared adventurers with low ammunition remaining are given a choice between infiltrating the Corpse Fleet Ultranought flagship with a full troop complement (and probably some high level commanders) or a likely deserted super weapon that's been sitting a pocket dimension for eons. Doesn't seem like a difficult choice to me. Yes, in Pathfinder we are willing to do crazy stuff because by level 10 we're super heroes. We can simultanously smash 2 or 3 encounters at once and walk away with only a few scratches. Even if things do go wrong there's always a few ways we can escape and regroup. We've thrown down with deities and won. This is our first Starfinder campaign and from what I've seen there's just not as many optimizing options and so combats are always closer and we usually come out of most battered and bruised. We play a lot more cautiously as a result. Would I rush the Ultranought with a high level Pathfinder group? Heck yeah and I'd be laughing hysterically as I kick the door open. Would I do it with Starfinder group? No way! Similar as they are they're still different games and different play styles.
This is our first Starfinder campaign and overall we've been having a good time. I feel I have a legitimate complaint about the go-go nature of the latter part of this AP that's prevented us from taking a proper break, selling stuff and getting better gear (most of us have weapons/armor that is 4+ levels behind). What's really bugging me though is the overall plot. I know it's an adventure path, and they tend to be railroady by nature but usually the railroad makes logical sense and we just follow the thread and enjoy the ride. But on this AP we've wasted almost entire sessions because the railroad is pushing us down a stupid or nonsensical path. I'm a player this time and have not read the books so it's possible that the DM has messed something up but usually he's really good so I'm thinking not. So we finally track down the location of the doomsday weapon. Instead of destroying the gateway so it can't re-enter our dimension, we're supposed to open the gateway and bring the stellar degenerator through.... Right, because that seems like a great idea. Oh and suprise, surpise, as soon as we do, the Corpsefleet shows up with an entire armada. Rather than head for the emerging stellar degenerator and try and sabotage it before the corpse fleet can get it, we're suppose to infiltrate the Empire of Bones, (a super star destroyer) and try and fly that into the Stellar Degenerator (the Death Star). What? After spending hours arguing about what to do about the corpse fleet armada, the DM finally told us what the adventure wants us to do because we had assumed he was just joking with the hints he was dropping. Trying to infiltrate and take over the Empire of Bones is Gonzo. Ridiculous. Preposterous. And yet here we are. I admit there's an element of awesomeness to it. Trying to do what should not be done. But I feel that's more acceptable when it's our idiotic idea that will likely fail spectacularly and not the only option written into an AP. Another lame element is the mag train. We stumble our way into the station but can't use the train because we don't know where to go. We have to recover some stupid security keys to access the security station because even a 41 computer check was not good enough to access the system. Instead, we have to roam around randomly checking rooms until we find the missing security keys so we can get the +25 circumstance bonus to computers (giving me a 65 check) and finally being able to figure out where to go. Oh, and again we can't rest because there's a massive space battle going on outside that's acting as a distraction. As soon as its over, the Corpsefleet will board the super weapon, and it's game over. That battle isn't going to last forever. I haven't seen any other complaints about this so maybe it's just my group but we've played over a dozen APs, including 3.5 and pathfinder and this is probably the rail-roadiest of them all and the later parts are stretching the limits of my suspension of disbelief. The encounters are still interesting but the plot /eye-roll.
I am playing an exo that is almost identical to yours. Get that laser sniper rifle and overcharge it every round. I average about as much damage as our operative but way behind the melee soldier. I went a few levels without weapon focus but you don't really need it as an exo-mechanic. Our targeting computer gives us full BAB. The character started with an 18 dex and has since added a +4 augmentation and most of the time I only miss on a 4 or less (at level 9).
If the Biohacker does get a few free consumables each day, poisons would be nice too. The DCs are too low to actually buy them but if they were free they be a nice boost in those rare cases where they actually work.
*Checks Starfinder
Well, what do you know? We've been playing this spell wrong for 18 years. I guess we should have kept reading the flavor text beyond the chart. This makes confusion a lot better vs a group and much, much less effective against a single enemy.
I get that they wanted another "pure tech" class, why not go an with Inventor/Gadetteer that's archetype even older than the Mad Biological Engineer.I'd bet money (if it was legal in my country) that the mechanic gets some expansions to also become an organic (or cyborg) pet class and a gadgeteer of sorts in the Characters Operations Manual. Interesting. I found the Biohacker the only class that jumped out at me as looking really fun. The Witchwarper is a cha caster which isn't a great casting stat. The warp reality ability is nice flavor but doesn't seem to do much until you reach high levels. Maybe it's been the people I play with but I haven't been impressed by Starfinder's casters. I'll have to build a test Vanguard or two since I don't "get" the class. Without some testing I don't see how it occupies a space that's much different than the Solarian. It's nice to see that different new classes appeal to different people.
I hadn't realized that durations of restoratives are equal to the key stat and not half. That's probably good enough. I would still like to see the AC boost to +2 instead of +1. I'm not sure such a small AC boost is worth it. We seem to get hit about 50-75% of the time even with armor at our current level. Alas, I don't have Herolab for Starfinder so forgive the formatting and possible errors: Android Biohacker 8 HP 54 Stamina 56 Resolve 9
Feats: Light Armor, Small Arms, Basic Melee, Weapon Spec, Weapon Focus (small Arms), Improved Initiative, Skill Synergy, Enhanced Resistance (Kinetic). Skills: Computers 15, Culture 15, Engineering 15, Life Science 17, Medicine 15, Perception, Physical Science 17, Survival 11, Piloting 14, Stealth 14 Nightorch Needler, Adv. +16 30' 2D6 (Holy Fusion)
How do you figure every three rounds?
Shoot boss with 2 normal rounds.
Shoot boss Refresh Injection
Reload (I assumed that injections still use normal rounds)
Shoot boss Refresh Injection
Luckily I only missed once (one of the two shots on Round 2).
We're playing our first Starfinder campaign as we normally play Pathfinder. I still prefer the Pathfinder system but Starfinder is still fun to change things up. I've been playing an android Exo-Cortex Mechanic that's 8th level. I play tested a Bio Hacker tonight. I kept the race, and the stat array the same and our GM allowed me to switch classes for tonight to see how it would play out. I went with the Studious version because it seemed stronger. There's no good debuffer class in Starfinder and I thought it would be a nice addition to our group. I focused on fighting with an injection pistol, whereas the mechanic uses a sniper rifle. We had 4 encounters tonight - one starship and three regular. Our scientist was missing this evening so played the scientist role as well as my regular engineering role. I was rolling abysmally tonight (we counted, I rolled 11 "1s") but after an unusually tough starship battle we pulled off a win. The BioHacker gets no insight bonus to skills and while I did take Skill Synergy I assigned to bonuses to Life and physical science thinking that would be more useful (I was wrong). Anyway, I missed a ton of rolls during starship combat where as normally I think I have to roll a 3 to succeed. I found the scanner to be pretty useless. The range is short and it takes a move action. We play that normally identifying creatures is a free action - you either know or you don't. It's not like you google it. We've never found anything in the rules that contradicts this. I tried to identify a creature using it once, failed and never bothered again. The basic counteragents are solid but I never used any. Aside from the +2 skill bonus, the restoratives are weak sauce. The skill bonus could be usefull it it lasted longer but too many tasks take more than 2 rounds. The spark of Ingenuity is nice for Studious. Unfortunately, I rolled a one
The fields of study are not very balanced. The counteragents range from barely useful (neurochemistry) to OP (pharmacology). The duration on restoratives is to short to be used anyway but as a reaction and they don't really do enough to be effective in that roll. Most of the breakthroughs are pretty meh, and the few that I can see my self using a paired with fields that I wouldn't take. You get the breakthrough too late to suffer through a weak field. You don't get enough for that. Theorums. Over all I thought these were pretty well done. There were quite a few I saw as useful. One beef is that everyone is going to take Quick Load at second level. If everyone is going to take an option, it shouldn't be an option. Just make it part of the class. Field Dressing is decent but doesn't scale at all at high levels - why not make it 4d8+level at 14? Toxic skin is nice for ranged people that don't like getting swallowed whole. And I took Arms expert to up my damage a bit. My damage was lower but still comparable to my over charged sniper rifle wielding mechanic. Level 8 seems to be sweet spot for BioHackers since the extra +1 from Weapon Focus and the extra +1 from Injection weapons both come into effect. I barely hit a few times tonight and those made a big difference. One comment form my GM: The counteragent from Pharmacology is too strong. I locked down a boss tonight with confusion. There's no save and nothing that says it can't be reapplied, so I shot him with the counteragent every second round and in the five rounds it only got to attack us once, and it hit itself pretty hard one round. If I keep playing the Biohacker I have to pick a different power next time. I also like the genetics power (vulnerability to element) and toxicology (sickness). Most of the other didn't impress me. The first battle we fought a non-organic being and I have to admit I forgot that my basic counteragents would work. Then we fought some undead (sigh) and a human boss (yay). The last fight was against a god's avatar which I thoroughly dominated. I looked at poisons and discovered Starfinder has the same problem with poisons that Pathfinder does. Poison is really deadly in Starfinder but the DCs are stupid low. PCs in starfinder tend to have one or more really crappy saves - unlike Pathfinder there's not much you can do to raise them. However, NPCs and monsters tend to have high saves. It's why our Mystic rarely bothers with his offensive spells anymore and why poison isn't worth it's high price. If a Biohacker could make it for cheap, then I wouldn't mind wasting it constantly but at 1400 credits a shot, no way. Missing is bad enough but when the save is trivial, it's pointless. Another reason why I don't like Starfinder's crafting rules. I enjoyed playing the Biohacker. A good selection of options are available. I don't like the choice of field of study restoratives to be so narrow. Really, how often do you run across a bleed attack? We've yet to encounter it. The restoratives should last longer in my opinion. I'd add an insight bonus to a couple skills, buff the restoratives and although it pains me to say so, nerf the confusion counteragent. I'm glad to see you are working on more classes for Starfinder. The Biohacker looks good and with a few tweaks could be great. I like more options and I'm looking forward to getting them. Hopefully there are lots of new (useful) feats as well since the current list is a bit short in that regard.
I'm really liking the BioHacker from what I've seen. I built one to the same level as my current Exo-Mechanic and asked if I could swap them out for our gaming session coming up this weekend. Looks like damage will be lower, AC will be a bit lower without heavy armor and Computers and Engineering won't be as sky high. Hit bonus is about the same, with more skills. The Genetics Counteragent is a big boost to party damage if you can make a creature vulnerable to the party's favorite energy type. Looking forward to trying it out.
As a DM I enjoy Pathfinder because of the fabulous Adventure Paths, not just by Paizo but there are some great 3rd party ones out there as well. Each session can be run with only a few hours of prep times which is much less than trying to run my own thing. As a player I like the options and the flexibility. I come up with a character concept and then build out multiple versions at different levels and then decide which one I like best. The flexible classes, archetypes, and feats mean that you could bend classes to be almost unrecognizable. My system mastery is pretty high and I generally build the most effective characters at my table. That's not to say I hog the spotlight, but my characters tend to focus on one or two things and I want them to be highly effective. By mid levels (8+) I expect to almost always be successful. If I'm the party face, I make my everyone love me. If I'm an offensive chaster, the enemies fail their saves. If I'm a damage dealer, I kill things super fast. If I'm a tank, I don't take much damage. I like to optimize.
I'm assuming you are playing in an evil campaign. Stats look good and I assume your GM is experienced and knows the can of worms he's allowing you to open. Staying in your original class is more optimal but if you want an evil PrC than Demoniac has great flavor. Just try not to die.
I'd probably only allow it to go off once. 9d6 is not a ton of damage at level 9, but it's too good to be able to do it round after round with little risk to yourself.
Savage Tide AP from 3.5 has tons of lost city/jungle dungeons.
Everyone knows first edition has problems although we may not agree what those are. I was hoping for an evolutionary Pathfinder 1.5. and instead got something that feels and plays VERY different. We paused our first Starfinder campaign for a round of playtesting 2nd Edition. Although there were some good ideas, overall no one liked it better than first edition and we haven't touched the playtest since. Unless there are massive changes we will likely switch over to Starfinder when we run out of first edition material.
GURPS is a great system to be a player. It is so fun making characters. So many options. It is also awful to GM. I won't do it and neither will the other guy in my gaming group with lots of familiarity with the system.
3D6 is a great idea. I think the D20 is much too swingy for the new system and 3D6 as a replacement would help fix that. Now if only I could get my group to test this...
This is nice to see. The classes are too straight-jacketed as is.
I was never a fan of the Christmas tree effect but I think Starfinder did a much better job of solving this problem than 2E. I like the idea of Resonance but its implementation is not something that I like. Seriously, what's wrong with CLW wands? One of the things we love about 1E is that no one has to play a Healer. In our Kingmaker campaign, our cleric player got tired of his character and since he was King he decided he would retire and rule the kingdom and no longer put himself in deadly situations. No one else wanted to play a healer so the healing fell to me, a Summoner. I made a custom staff of Heal and carried around a crate of CLW wands for after battle healing and a few scrolls. Everyone got to play the class they wanted and we could still function. As it stands now this cannot be done in 2E and is another reason why I don't see my group making the transition.
I understand the new philosophy but the more exposure I have to it the more negatives I see. As a player I don't really care for low level pathfinder. You miss a lot. You get hit a lot and you fail at skills a lot. Once my character gets to around 5 or so I'm generally successful in areas I wish to be good at and by level 10 I rarely fail. We have not test played 2e at higher levels yet but it looks like 2e will always play like low level 1E. The good news is that high level play (15+) will actually be feasible but I'm not sure I'd want to play it. I like making builds that involve hunting lots of bonus to get really good at something and unless something changes drastically with 2E I don't see that happening.
Please make crossbows and spears good again. I loved the Bolt Ace. There aren't any good options to make a spear wielder great.
You could start Serpent's Skull easily with book 2 but that would be skipping what is by far the best part of the AP.
the Dazing spell Metamagic is very strong to the point that my group has agreed not to use it. It basically turned every combat into a "Ye who goes first, wins".
Without doing a full mockup of both I would say that the pouncing barbarian will win hands down. Unless there's been some change, the vital strike line only adds base weapon damage. At 11th level a vital striking barbarian is doing about 6d10+30 (63ish) while the pouncing barbarian is going to be hitting for 2d10+30/2d10+30/2d10+30. Even if he only hits twice that's 82 damage. These are just made up numbers but you get the idea. Both Bloodrager and Barbarian are terrifying opponents. Barb's offense tends to be a bit better at offense while the Bloodrager tends to have more utility/defensive options. Displacement as a swift action is awesome.
A solution which is probably easier said than done is to join or put together your own gaming group. Then you don't have to worry about PFS rules and can try to ignore Paizo's nerfs/erratas.
Unless you are looking at a different Fast Study than I am, all fast study does is allow you to fill your empty spell slots faster. If you leave one open in the morning you could later fill it with a Fly spell to get over a ravine (assuming your open spell slot was 3rd level or higher). It doesn't allow you to reuse spent slot slots.
Personally, I like the Occultist and the Mesmerist. None of them seem OP. We just starting a new campaign and this is the first time any Occult classes have been played. We have a Psychic and an Occultist. It is too early to judge how each performs. I find the Kineticist to be an interesting class but I can't just can't build one out that I am happy with. The Occultist has great flavor but for melee builds suffers the same problem as the battle cleric - takes too long to buff.
Rogues are fun in low level games (<level 5) or in role-play heavy games. If neither applies then I would go Slayer for the same flavour but stays effective in combat past level 4. If you are truly married to the idea of Rogue go Strength and get a 2 handed weapon. Less opportunities to sneak attack but you might actually hit something.
You can also give out extra magic items to help them out. I play with a guy that runs two groups. He makes combat easier for the first group since they are big on role playing and their campaigns often wander off in weird unexpected directions, and the characters tend to be non-combat oriented. And then there's us who tend to be prototypical murder hobos who happily follow along the campaigns invisible rails and tend to stomp all over even his enhanced monsters and NPCs. The sweet spot seems to be knocking a PC out in combat and/or causing the group to retreat. The DM seems to get pretty happy when we are forced to abandon our kick down the door strategy and come at the encounter from a different direction.
Summoner provides lots of utility, a party face, and a super melee slaying machine. You would hog the spotlight in a larger party but with only three someone who can fill multiple party roles successfully is a big plus.
I just find combat maneuvers largely ineffective. If you are fighting a single enemy it is likely enormous and effectively immune to CM or you are fighting several enemies where inconveniencing one really doesn't help you win the fight. One guy I regularly play with was a barbarian. He loved tripping things are was reasonably good at it. The problem was he could kill the enemy with a full round attack or he could trip it, making it harder to hit for the archer and still leaving it at full health on the next round. It reached the point where he'd say he was tripping something and the rest of the players would all shout "Nooooooo". It they are tripped they will stand up and hit you, if disarmed they'll draw another weapon and hit you, if you blind them they'll still flail around and possibly hit you. If you kill them, they won't be hitting you. We don't play PFS which I hear features lots of humanoids. Against anything else, I see combat maneuvers as ineffective and a waste of effort.
Thanks. A few suggestions here I wasn't aware of. I was hoping there was another awesome favored bonus I didn't know about.
1. I find casters pass non casters in general utility somewhere between 5 and 10 depending on group make up. 2. A well built fighter is going to competitive in damage dealing with other classes until 20. Where fighters struggle is out of combat options or really anything other than I hit it with my sword/shoot it with my bow. 3. A very optimized rogue with a group that works with the rogue to maximize his effectiveness is a decent combatant. This is even more true with Unchained Rogue. However there are so many situations where a rogue won't do well that generally they seriously under perform in combat by level 5 or so. Vanilla monks are kinda the opposite of fighters. They have lots of combat tricks but none of them do much damage. The unchained monk is a stronger combatant but again needs lots of optimization to perform as well as classes that don't need as much. 4. I find wizards to be more toolboxes of spells and sorcerers to be more focused in one area. But I think this is more dependent on the player and their style then differences built into the classes themselves. 5. Vital strike is really good for specialty builds but otherwise I don't see it being used enough to justify it. The problem with the Two-Weapon fighting feat line is that you have to take a ton of feats to do as much damage as the next guy with a two handed weapon and Power Attack. It just doesn't seem worth it unless you really have your heart set on two weapon fighting.
As my current campaign is slowly moving towards its end, I have started looking ahead to what I may play next. I haven't played a full caster in a long time so I'm strongly considering that route. I don't like it when my spells fail so I've been looking at ways to get my spell DCs way up. I put together an enchanter build. A Kitsune Fey-blooded enchanter can get an extra +7 to compulsion spell DCs by level 16. That's huge! I would much prefer to focus on transmutation or necromancy spells, but I can't find anyway to really bump those school spells DCs up. I don't like specializing in enchantment or illusion since so many creatures are immune to them. Aside from the obvious Spell Focus feats, or going Arcanist for Potent Magic (all of which can be applied to any school), are there any good tricks out there for boosting specific school DCs?
My beef with the Occultist is that most of its powers are standard actions to activate. Much like battle clerics, by the time you are buffed and ready to go the fights over.
/casts Raise Thread. I find Elemental Ascetic very underwhelming.
a +2 light crossbow shooting +1 flaming holy arrows, would be +2 to hit and +2 to damage and inflict an extra 1d6 Fire and 2d6 holy damage.
There is also the serial killer archetype for the vigilante. The evil requirement may or may not be a problem however.
How about Druid?
How about a mesmerist? He/She could be controlling lots of innocents forcing them to do evil things. Perhaps even controlling a fake BBEG.
cqb? Generally non front liners don't rely on AC or DR - that's more for Fighters or Barbarians. Wizards and Sorcs want Invisibility, Mirror Image, or Displacement. And for that matter, most try to avoid getting to close to the monsters anyway. You don't have very many hp and your poor fort save will get you killed.
Hell's Rebels or the upcoming updated Curse of the Crimson Throne. Two best Paizo APs, hands down. This. Kingmaker and RotRL AE are both good as well.
Curse of the Crimson Throne was IMHO the best AP, until Hell's Rebel's came along.
It depends on your group. If they tend to skip thorugh RP and get straight to the killing then I would go for WotW over CotCT. Both were fun but I would rate Curse better over all - especially if you can wait for the upcoming anniversary edition. Lain the Cat has not created a profile. |