WatersLethe's page

Teridax wrote:

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

So will Technomancers keep their unique Spellshape features? It to me is what makes them different then all other casters current in their extreme focus upon them. Removing them would make it feel like a Technological Wizard instead of a Technomancer to me personally.

I personally feel the opposite way: the current Technomancer's excessive focus on spellshapes is what made them feel too close to a spellshaping Wizard to me, especially as their more interesting components were being sidelined. I'd still like to see their spellshape feats kept, but I hope the playtest summary's statement of shifting them away from spellshapes means those spellshapes become fully optional, and the Technomancer's new focus will be on abilities that are markedly different from the Wizard's.

Yeah, I agree with this! The playtest Technomancer was a class with some really interesting features (and some quite broken ones!)... that ultimately felt like it should've been called "Spellhacker". There was a real gulf between the class fantasy in name and theme versus what its mechanics actually touched.

I agree as well. The playtest Technomancer could have been released almost as-is as some kind of specialty wizard archetype and no one would have batted an eye.

What grinds my gears the most is when, after all this time, people don't even bother to distinguish between PF1 and PF2. Makes my eye twitch.

Can I offer you a nice [10 pearly white spindles] in this trying time?

Most likely someone forgot that draconic is a common language. I do not think it is intended to give you a bonus language.

I believe it's a pretty clear cut "duplicate effects" situation, but surprised that this isn't more universally concluded.

Still, it's such a bad idea I would let it slide if it mattered to someone enough.

Jack Black Lem.

I don't know what would be funnier, having an extremely young or EXTREMELY old actor play Ezren, the 42 year old wizard.

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Recently got the itch to play a martial character whose weapon of choice is some kind of reinforced metal-handled shovel,...

Thinking of this guy? Don't forget your trowel. :)

I like the way he uses both ends of the shovel. Wasn't there a relatively new feature that lets someone dual wield with a polearm and its butt-end?

Bonus conspiracy theory. Druids caused "The Gap", the disappearance of the Wildsong language, is a cover-up...

Druids caused the The Gap because someone taught a non-druid Wildsong. One thing led to another and things got out of hand.

All historical weapons were made to fight humans. The fact that we're using them in this fantasy setting against monsters is already wildly unrealistic. I would not want them to spend any development time on making weapons hew closer earth battlefield useage.

I stopped playing SF1 not because PF2 was on the horizon, but because when PF2 launched the foibles of SF1 started to become unbearable. The design had so many ugly bumps that it was a chore to play in comparison.

SF1 and SF2 are going to be tonally very similar, so I don't think that's going to help you on the "darkness" front. That's really up to you and how you use the system anyway.

SF PCs are almost definitely NOT going to show up in PF Society.

That all being said, SF2 has got me so excited. We're already playing a SF2 game and the integration with PF2 content has been excellent. I plan on encouraging much more "cross-play" than Paizo intends baseline, and it's going to be awesome.

I'm really, really hyped to be able to mix and match.

1) There aren't any suggested adjustments for specific door types in the rules, right? I've got not problems handwaving it, but it would be annoying doing so because I missed the actual rule.

This falls under the "actual rule" of Adjusting Difficulty. They don't list out every possible type of door and its consequence on listening. You have to decide if listening through a door is incredibly easy, very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, or incredibly hard.

Also, the more you play PF2 as a group the more fun it gets, in a way that PF1 couldn't really match. In PF1, when you have system mastery, GMing becomes functional as you learn the ins and outs of encounter design, but Players also learn more and more tricks to tip the scales, so you don't reach a point where all of the group's combined experience is making the system sing. There's a tension there.

With PF2, you rapidly gain confidence in GMing and can start bending your expertise towards clever encounter design and challenges. The players learn the rules and get a sense for how to quickly and easily build characters, but aren't able to break the game balance so they bend their expertise toward fleshing out character options and stories, and thinking more about the group as a whole for strategies and cohesion.

After playing PF2 this long, there's been a lot more opportunities for oneshots and quick campaigns because no one has to go to the optimization mines to work long hours on a character. We can jump right into the action. Our longer campaigns were also more fun because I could whip up custom side stories with so much more ease, so players felt more like it was an open world.

I just want to chime in with a few things I keep in mind when people ask to listen at a door:

1. Every door has a different sound dampening effect. Don't forget to include appropriate adjustments for perception check DCs (very easy to very hard, etc)! It's actually quite important for making the presence of the door matter! Also don't forget to factor in distance while you're at it.

2. Basic DCs are perfectly fine for most everything that's not trying to actively avoid notice

3. If people want to go through a dungeon room by room, and the person checking for traps says they also want to check for sounds, you can just stay in exploration mode and roll for them twice. Combining into one roll isn't nearly as fun, since it lowers the chance of mixed results.

(If you count playtest classes, I'm side-eying the Guardian, who has a similar issue but worse because you can't just roll harder to dig yourself out of it)

The Guardian, when released, is going to be getting a hard look for worst class candidate. The playtest was rough.

I just fundamentally don't care for JiCi's design vision for the Fighter. Might be time to move on.

I'd play and enjoy every class yet, to be clear, but my least favorite would have to be Witch because I resent its dearth of hexes and how poorly it compares against bards. It just never hit the personal preferences I had for it coming from PF1.

I would say my favorite class is cleric, but of the last four opportunities to play three of my characters have been barbarians. I love the leeway the extra HP gives you in being able to try risky stuff, and their chassis is solid enough to support a lot of roleplay concepts.

Thankfully we're not talking about 1e or I would have to bring up the Shifter and its... unique problems.

I just want to chime in to add:

1. Many PF1 enjoyers will prefer a Free Archetype game, because the additional feats provide more flexibility and can unlock builds earlier, like you could do with judicious use of archetypes and build planning in PF1. It's more meat on the character gen bone.

2. PF2 combat is a LOT more fun than PF1. On both sides of the GM screen. It flows so smooth, and the tactics matter so much more.

3. Noncombat encounters are vastly underestimated in this system. The consistent math makes it very easy to adjudicate, and create things on the fly. The skill system in PF2 is a lot more reliable, and well supported with feats and things like Follow the Expert. I've had sessions go by with no combat and we never noticed.

4. Ancestries in PF2 make PF1 ancestries look like a joke.

Yeah a cost is probably appropriate but you might be surprised how far it can get you without one, if your group is the right mix of non-powergamey, action focused, and lazy about digging into options available. For us it works to ensure the item they found ages ago isn't completely pointless now, and that's about it.

My house rule: New Item DC = Original Item DC + Character Level - Item Level

This skips the nonlinear adjustment that make higher level items have better DCs to account for ability score improvements and proficiency advancements, etc. Keeps higher level items an improvement, even if ordinarily all the higher level item does is provide a higher DC. Below are some examples based on assumed enemy save bonuses.

Level 7 Item Scaling Examples:
Level 7 PC, Level 7 Foe: ~60% chance to land effect
Level 12 PC, Level 12 Foe: ~50% chance to land effect (was ~25%)
Level 17 PC, Level 17 Foe: ~40% chance to land effect (was ~0%)
Level 20 PC, Level 20 Foe: ~35% chance to land effect (was ~0%)

Level 12 Item Scaling Examples:
Level 12 PC, Level 12 Foe: ~55% chance to land effect
Level 17 PC, Level 17 Foe: ~45% chance to land effect (was ~20%)
Level 20 PC, Level 20 Foe: ~40% chance to land effect (was ~0%)

Level 17 Item Scaling Examples:
Level 17 PC, Level 17 Foe: ~60% chance to land effect
Level 20 PC, Level 20 Foe: ~55% chance to land effect (was ~40%)

I'm sincerely hoping that we get asymmetric starship combat so that enemy starships are vastly easier to build and run for the GM. If that happens, we would likely also get much more consistent starship encounters in published content.

This is what I've been waiting for

I think Animal Companions could use a few more tweaks here and there, but it's definitely not dire. As-is I like them quite a bit, and they're strong enough without feeling required.

If the math enhancing feats that are basically required had more customization opportunities tied to them, I think that would go a long way to making them feel better.

I wouldn't mind a class focused more on Animal Companions that takes care of most of these complaints though.

I truly wonder if anyone has taken Magic Warrior stuff... it's just not very attractive, and doesn't really do anything to promote the lore behind it mechanically. A real dud for me.

Area fire weapona take 2 actions to fire, leaving not enough actions left for most casting. Technomancer class DC advancement is also worse than their weapon advancement if I recall correctly

But the more I read them, the more they remind me of things I don't enjoy about PF2e classes. The mechanic promises a cool class fantasy, but they both mostly use the flavor of creation to be a class that hits things good. The technomancer promises a cool gameplay loop, but it requires turns that are either rigid or "best case scenario" just to reliably do what your class promises you.

They don't have the cool abilities that interact with tech, like Androids and Prismeni do. They don't have reliable at-will abilities that help out your team, like Envoys and Mystics do. They don't have cleverly flavored out-of-combat utility, like a Mystic's "Cloud Storage" or an Operative's "Barricade" feats.

Kind of funny that you say this is PF2 problem when Druid exists as an extremely flavorful, versatile, powerful spellcaster class that, if Technomancer had copied the homework of except crossed out nature for tech, would have knocked it out of the park from a flavor standpoint.

If anything, the problem is that the SF2 team is getting a bit lost in the weeds trying to be different from PF2, while not adequately embracing the non-combat technology that exists in the setting.

2) DPS++ Wants you to be shooting a gun, which you in general won't be good at as a full on spellcaster.

Just want to point out that in the PF2 engine, a ranged weapon strike on a damage caster is actually very good. With minimal investment your strikes can be on par with second attacks from most martials, so combining a spell and a shot is surprisingly valuable. This is generally not seen *as much* in PF2 because of the few good handy ranged weapons available, which guns fix.

The reason Technomancer is failing at using guns is their action economy is pretty borked with their focus on spell shapes.

I like it just fine. You get reliable access to a shield that you can use for blocking, no matter what loot drops or what shops or crafting are available. That extra point of hardness on an already Sturdy shield is gravy.

Also, blocking three strikes in a battle covers most battles, no? Not only is that a decent amount of damage mitigated, you also have your main class feature competing for the same reaction resource.

Anyway, looks like a matter of taste to me.

I hope we finally get ice dragons back. The new dragons and the primal elemental dragons combined filled all the mechanical niches I really needed from basic Dragons... except Ice. Nothing has ice breath right now. It's a bit of a glaring absence, especially with one 2E AP featuring one as a major antagonist.

There's so many fun names you could use. Rime Dragons, Glacial Dragons, Hoarfrost Dragons, Winter Dragons, Polar Dragons, etc.

Hear hear!

Yeah, I would agree that Overclock isn't meshing in right. It's giving SF1 solarian. On the surface it looks like an interesting mechanical loop, but when you get down to brass tacks it doesn't jive well with how combats play out in the real world.

Spitballing, but what about a neat and tidy one action focus cantrip that we load all of our hopes and expectations about Tech-integration into?

Something like this maybe:

_________________________
Influence Technology (1A)
Cantrip, Concentrate, Hack, Technomancer
Range: 60ft; Targets: 1 Object or Creature with the Tech Trait
Duration: 1 minute

You temporarily optimize or interfere with the underlying code of the target. When the target is used for (or makes) an attack roll or skill check, grant the target a +1 status bonus or -1 status penalty (your choice) to that check if it would alter the degree of success of the check result. The spell then ends, and the target of this hack is temporarily immune for 1 hour.

If you cast Influence Technology while a previous casting of this hack is still in effect, the previous effect ends.
___________________________

Boost a comm unit to give a bonus to a diplomacy roll, boost your mag boots to give a bonus to athletics, boost your gun for your next shot, etc.

4. Through internal testing it was found that the tech in Technomancer was sufficiently advanced enough to roll back around to it being a magicmancer, or a wizardwizard, or a wizard^2, so they had to go back to an earlier version where it was just a wizard with a phaser to maintain the fantasy.

I'd just like to point out that... they kind of did this.

All the "tech" in technomancer was loaded into their spells, except for the one overclock they get to interact with a tech item, like a gun.

It's an Experimental Spellshaping Wizard with a gun.

So WatersLethe, I didn't mention Augmented reality. I understand what AR/VR are. I said "ALTERED" reality. someone was talking about creating a area where digital constructs became real and such. Creating pockets of Altered reality is explicitly the bread and butter of the witchwarper. So what's being described in that situation would be more akin to a tech themed witchwarper.

I am the one talking about creating an "area" where you can do things like that. But I want to be clear. I want Technomancers to be able to create an "area" of "internet access" on the order of 100's of feet in radius, wherein AR content can be located just as it could in a techno-future city even in a barren wilderness planet. They could then use that "internet access" to do things like summon hardlight versions of their AI programs, or things of that nature. If this sounds too much like a Witchwarper, I'm afraid Witchwarper should butt out not the other way around.

my argument regarding spells is that they have said previously that spells that interact with technology are common since the setting has had high technology for centuries. So a lot of the flavorful tech things you mention, for example creating the HP and stat screen for an enemy, are things spells will cover (or in some of the other cases may) cover.

The problem with this approach is that ANY spellcaster with access to the arcane list is going to be just as much "techno" as a technomancer. A wizard would actually be better, because they can cast more spells per day. It also has a cost from a worldbuilding perspective, where it feels a lot more like a coat of paint on a fantasy RPG engine, because everything technological is also "a wizard did it" here just as it was in PF times.

It could work if there were a lot of tech-specific FOCUS spells that the Technomancer had ready access to, thus protecting their "tech specialist" niche to a great degree. That would align with how, for example, Druid and Bard get focus spells that plant their flavor flags firmly in the ground.

What I worry not many are accounting for is that not all environments will be high tech. and if too much of the class' power budget is put into interacting directly with tech, that may not leave them much they can do in environments without tech. I think that's why they created the OVerclock and modify abilities for these two classes. so that you could always interact with the tech you bring with you and your powers are never turned off because you are in the wrong environment. And then you have a lot of spells that let the technomancer interact with technology in those more creative ways y'all are thinking of, but you can prepare non-tech dependent spells if you know you'll be in a low tech area. that is what I was trying to get across before.

I am arguing that the technomancer should have the ability to bring tech with them. They're playing a science fantasy game and have elected to play a technomancer. If you tell the player they're in a wilderness and there's no tech, and they can't bring enough with them to utilize cool futuristic technology abilities... you're not working with the setting. We can't keep technology at arms length just because someone MIGHT want to make a low-tech campaign, or we're kneecapping our creativity for this SCIENCE fantasy game.

Being able to do a neat trick with one (1) item, especially one as unimaginative as a gun, does a disservice. If they could do many party tricks with data pads, scanners, augmented reality, AI, or a variety of other things, and other classes couldn't easily replicate those, then we're talking. Right now it's not enough.

How complicated have you found it to manage multiple spell shapes loaded onto one spell from a sheer "what all does this spell do" perspective? I'm concerned about that complexity being a roadblock for players who are already shy about the complexity of prepared casters.

For me, a class needs a STRONG justification for why it *could* allow pick-a-list spellcasting. Mystic gains power from a deep connection to otherworldly forces that have varied capabilities, so it gets a pass. Witchwarper has a really broad narrative basis, with timetravel shenanigans to falling between the cracks of realities... it also gets a pass. The spell lists are a huge factor in how a class feels to play, and just letting every class go with whatever dramatically waters down the impact spellcasting can have on class fantasy.

Technomancer combines a scholarly understanding of technology with a scholarly understanding of magic. I don't think the other lists fit at all with that.

Now, their chassis is looking quite anemic compared to the others, that I can agree with. They need more something!

What you described the technomancer doing is the Witchwarper thing. Setting up a field of altered reality. That is a tech themed Witchwarper subclass.

I'd also like to push back on this.

Augmented reality is, essentially, having a heads up display that lets you see virtual objects, information, and entities that are superimposed on the real world, and have spatial coherence.

In the sci-fi future, it can be easily imagined that Augmented Reality could be a big deal, closely linked to a planet's infosphere. Imagine Pokemon Go a thousand years in the future using an unimaginably advanced AR headset. Your group could have full conversations with persistent AI personas that is almost impossible to distinguish from reality. All of this, presumably, relying on the existence of a shared connection to the infosphere that hosts the persistent AR content.

Being able to permanently act as a mini infosphere-hotspot/matrix node/AR node does not, to me, necessarily equate to a Witchwarper. We're not talking about a specific zone becomes difficult terrain type stuff. We're talking letting meatspace individuals see your AI Cortana who is normally only visible in AR, or creating a floating HP meter above an enemy's head, or creating hard-light projections of your programmed minions that aren't themselves magical in nature. Things like that.

If they did print a Witchwarper focused on AR/VR I would call foul that it's 100% trying to eat the Technomancer's lunch.

All of this AR/VR talk may sound like me pulling it out of nowhere, but I'd like to point out that if our futuristic sci-fi game doesn't even have AR/VR capabilities comparable to what we have today, on earth, then we have SERIOUSLY failed the Starfinder setting. I'm going to continue to push for more creativity in the tech space, because it's really what sets this game apart from Pathfinder, and having everything just being gun cowboys in space really makes me feel like we're not giving ourselves enough creative liberty.

I've championed that Starfinder 1e de-emphasized magic too much regularly in the past. Now I find myself facing people saying, essentially, that spells are our replacement for technology in this version of Starfinder, which is bonkers to me.

This is a really good insight; I hadn't noticed it at all. Given how Starfinder has tied in weapons and tech with class DC, this really should be one of Technomancers' areas to shine. Or at the very least not fall behind Witchwarper.

So the basic class feature they have that does magic to technology that they carry around doesn't count because... because.

Real quick wanted to respond to this snarky comment:

"Yeah I'm kind of a tech enthusiast. But only really in one field. Well, one product category. Well... toasters. I am a tech enthusiast for toasters. The kitchen appliance."

I've always understood Technomancer to mean someone who combines technology and magic. Not someone who is, essentially, just really really good at magic. Or in other words, the logical conclusion of an Experimental Spellshaping Thesis Wizard after a few more generations of study.

The only real interface with tech is the extremely limited overclock system. It's so narrowly focused it doesn't feel like someone who's good with tech, it feels like someone who has this one party trick they can do in addition to being super awesome at magic.

I think we can get to a better tech+magic feel with more ribbon abilities, as well as some more nods to in-world tech like the drift, virtual realities, AI, and computing devices.

Things like being able to make magical effects in an anti-magic field by utilizing technologically based stand-ins wouldn't go amiss either.

So you want to add class abilities that can be functionally useless depending on the environment?

Because in the jungles of Castrovel, or in the open wastes of Akiton, or barren rocks in the Diaspora, all of those tech specific abilities you're talking about are useless. Do you want the D&D5e ranger? Because this is how you get the D&D5e Ranger.

I covered this in my previous posts about Mechanic and Technomancer, but I think there's a fundamental failing if they can't *bring technology with them*. I wanted Mechanic to be able to rapidly create or carry with them technological solutions to physical problems, and for Technomancers to be able to do the same in the realm of software by exuding an aura of augmented reality, acting as a Matrix node they can deploy AIs or programs within.

However, that being said, all of my examples work just fine with carried objects in a wilderness setting.

If we're relegating technology to an optional backdrop, that players can't meaningfully interact with even if they choose to build characters focused on it, we are not being creative enough and in my opinion dropping the ball on the whole Starfiner 2e system.

I've just read over it quickly so far, and my opinion may shift, but I'm in full agreement with the OP as it stands.

Technomancer right now looks like a Spellhacker, and very much NOT the "druid/animist of technology" that I would like to see. Everything is hyper focused on modifying spells, which is only a portion of the fantasy of a Technomancer.

There should be things like Voice of Nature (Animal Empathy but for computers/AI/programs/robots/drones) and Wildsong (Secret machine language known only by technomancers and some tech entities), or things in that vein.

Focus spells being only for modifying actual spells is also a missed opportunity. Focus spells were added to the game specifically to let players engage in a specific class fantasy more frequently and reliably. Using them for metamagic is one flavor (though that fantasy would 1000% be shared by something like an Arcanist from 1e or an Experimental Spellshaping Wizard, there's a lot of toe stepping going on if we're all-in on metamagic as Technomancers' *thing*), but the other flavor is "doing things with tech objects and programs in-world in a way that other characters can't".

Imagine a focus spell that let you augment all AI processes in the vicinity, or one that lets you physically enter a computer/tablet/comm unit, or one that lets you be treated as a Construct, or create semi-real objects from a video game, or or or

There should also be more feats for utility and interacting with the world outside of spells.

In the interest of keeping our expectations grounded, here is a short list of a few ways that the playtest could turn out:

1. The team has decided to really double down on the techno in Technomancer, and they have made it a bard class archetype that is really into electronic dance music.

2. The Mechanic was reimagined to fill a more grounded character fantasy, and now must pay a tithe to the Snap-on truck to use their abilities

3. The Technological Equipment section is just a picture of Carl Sagan and the word "Imagination" repeated over and over.

4. Through internal testing it was found that the tech in Technomancer was sufficiently advanced enough to roll back around to it being a magicmancer, or a wizardwizard, or a wizard^2, so they had to go back to an earlier version where it was just a wizard with a phaser to maintain the fantasy.

5. Too much of the Mechanic's abilities were baked into robotic assistants, so, for balance, whenever you build a mechanic you make an NPC that hangs out in town and sends out a robot PC of a different class to do the adventuring.

6. Hacking had to be removed from the playtest because people continually passed out from strapping their hacker goggles on too tightly. They're working on a way to get around this issue.

7. The UPB vs UBP mixup was so common that the team decided to officially rename them "UPB/UBPs" so everyone is right.

8. To keep Aballon from being too cool given the new tech rules, it was moved 37 million miles closer to the sun.

I've given it a lot of thought and to be honest I HIGHLY value cross compatibility, but what I want most of all is for the Starfinder devs to be able to put out a game they're proud of. If the balance between systems gets wonky, I can put up with a bit more homebrew tweaking to get them to mesh if it means a developer feels like they got to make the game they wanted to make rather than the one constraints boxed them into making.

Passion is what makes systems come out fun and last the test of time.

Decrypt these fists, ya keyboard masher!

Just gonna tuck this direct quote away for later

Dumping dex as a strength martial is not sunshine and roses. Without going into Sentinel dedication for Mighty Bulwark you're a trip magnet. You also give up a bunch of your carry capacity afforded by your strength for the heavier armor, spend more actions moving around the battlefield, have trouble getting carried out of danger, and may have to spend more feats just to get into the proficiency to start with.

It can be worth it but for many of my characters it's definitely not.

Quiet Allies is borderline required if you ever want to sneak as a group. It's come up so, SO often that a group of players, all trained in stealth, want to try to sneak and they all look around to find that no one is an Expert and no one has Quiet Allies, and suddenly that stealth training feels a whole lot less valuable.

I'm personally quite glad that you CAN go str+dex and be rewarded for doing so. The either/or mentality is what I find irritating.

In either case, most dex builds get other damage boosting effects to make up for their lack of raw weapon and ability score damage. In my experience, it's felt pretty good in play. The only strength based build I see regularly making people question their damage output is a big two-handed barbarian.

As for the topic of the OP: I still don't think we've heard what specific goals they have for the character beyond the words "Monk" and "Katana".

There are plenty of str+dex concepts that would work quite well with a katana and light armor. You even have boosts left over for wis and con.

With more specificity of the requirements we could all help a lot better.

I'm unclear what an Anacite is, and don't currently have access to AoN. can someone explain that to me?

They're essentially the robot-natives of Aballon. They were created by some ancient species that's lost to history, and some believe they're meant to wait for their return while others believe they should follow in their creators' footsteps.

From the StarfinderWiki

Anacites are the self-modifying constructs native to the world of Aballon. Each anacite is a unique, self-improving construct, and over the millennia of their existence, thousands of different models have developed. Depending on their role, anacites can have any form and can reconfigure themselves to adapt to their circumstances. The most common anacite design is a basic arthropodan form of silvery metal, with multiple legs for efficient travel and claws for accomplishing their assigned tasks.

I’ll see what I can do. ;)

Interesting.

I'm really on board with the Anacite hope. I love those guys