I just straight up can't sign into my account. It says my email simply doesn't exist, so won't even send a sign in link. Umm... so how am I posting here?? Are all my PDF purchases just GONE now??
My own personal take on PL+3 / PL+4 boss fights usually includes some of the following: 1) Make defenses like damage immunity dependent on a reaction, but applicable to a wide range of damage. That means it's not just certain party members who have their damage ignored, and the party can get past the immunity by eating the reaction (or at higher levels, canceling it with magic). 2) Lower the attack stat by 1 or 2 to reduce crits. 3) Give the creature interesting options for movement and special abilities that will both entertain and keep the threat high despite reduced attack. 4) Hand out enough hero points that everybody has at least 2 going into a boss fight. 5) Play the creature as dumb and don't have it focus fire unless the players do something that would naturally encourage it (like having only one character engage in melee). 6) Don't use superior mobility to have a creature kite unless that is central to it's personality, or it is already loosing. If the boss creature is sure of it's superiority, why would it kite?
I honestly wonder if Reach and 2-hand d10 shouldn't just be one trait like the others, since the reason you make them two is "so you can't take them together" but a 2 handed reach weapon that does d10 is just something anybody with martial weapon proficiency can buy at the shop. It is a one handed reach weapon that does d8 and some bonus on every hit (difficult terrain or bonus damage). It is an EXCELLENT weapon that NOBODY can buy, even before the bonus effect. The two hand trait (as noted above) is just that and is... not worth the squeeze. Even if you COULD take it in combination with reach, I wouldn't. Much rather have Trip, Shove, or Free Hand.
But at the same time I think we need to be able to evaluate classes in a somewhat feat agnostic way too because there are lots of feat choices and if we narrow our description down to "this specific feat utilized in this way is strong" then we're talking less about the health of the class overall and more about this one specific quirky build being good, which is materially different to me and suggests there are lot of traps and fail states you could accidentally stumble into. I think "there are lot of traps and fail states you could accidentally stumble into" actually describes the Solarian class balance pretty well. It can do quite well or very badly depending on build choice and play style, and it is not always obvious which choices will give which result. Making it especially bad is that it is a "cool vibes" class that LOOKS easy to build and play, so appeals to a lot of new players.
I agree that the core book version LOOKS under tuned, but works decently on the table top. This is from my admittedly limited experience playing at level 1. Solar shot is actually good when you are in range (which is more than you'd expect from the talk about "ranged meta"). A +3 attack instead of +4 isn't a big difference in most low level fights, and a flat +4 to damage (from +4 strength) makes that an unusually effective ranged attack. Maybe my guy just rolls well and has only faced soft targets, but I basically ripped through a target a turn in every fight we have had... except one that was a (somewhat scripted) TPK. I think the bigger issue is that it is very MAD. You need the +4 str and +3 dex to do that, which doesn't leave much for putting on other stats. You'll be locked in on being good at str and dex skills, and maybe have a +2 in a decent mental stat if you play a 3 stat race. Also so many of it's special "solar effect" only apply on crit, which seems like a "win more" feature that doesn't actually help in hard situations. I'm told it feels even better at higher levels, though I have my doubts. Getting the multiple crystal sets to upgrade your solar weapon(s) and solar flare as well as armor (and likely a shield, you'll need it not to get mobbed down as a solo front liner) to stay at level, seems like it would strain and surpass typical wealth. And the effects gained from orbital crystals seem both weaker and less reliable than those from mods, often being tied to one attunement. As to fixes, I do think they could use ... something more. Possible ideas: - Solar Crystals should apply to ALL solar attacks, so you don't need to keep up on 2/3 sets of them. - Solarian gets choice of increased proficiency with either one attunement or the solar weapon / solar flare as class feature. This gives "sub classes" that are more proficient with one attunement or with melee / ranged fighting, brings those crit effects into play more often, and is a simple way to give the 10-20% damage boost people say the class needs. It is especially appropriate to a class that will often be striking in melee without any aid from allies for flanking. - All Solar Attacks should have Boost as an option (d10 for weapon, d8 for flare). It is SILLY that (all else equal) using a Painglave can easily be more effective than using your solar weapon.
The fact you almost certainly are adding +4 to the damage dice helps. I took Binauric Assault to get two zero MAP cracks at that, and don't even feel bad when I double wiff. Maybe a Melee soldier does better, but my "OK" was just that - sufficient to get by. Good to know they actually go up from there, I expected the opposite.
Vlaka built artificial environments would have the scent equivalent of paint and lighting, probably derived from natural elements. So a hatch in the floor might be "hole in the dirt" scented, and stairs might be "fallen log" scented. It's not a stretch to think they could make a tech device that uses video / lidar to map other environments to a personal sensorium of similar scent cues. Seems like if such tech were possible it would make other artificial senses / sense improvements (like dark vision) much cheaper as well as creating a disability when not available, but ... eh, game practicality and balance. It only really has to work for "mapping" out very clean artificial environments, vacuum, etc.
Two things I don't see mentioned above are Augmentations and Armor Mods. These kind of fill the same rolls magic items often do in Pathfinder, but use different sets of limitations and often entirely new / more appropriate (to both setting and mechanics) functionality. And you can still use magic items - the game has them, just not many in the core book, and it's up to the GM to decide if / which ones carry over from PF2E (or maybe get rethemed as tech).
This is in fact clearly legal. An empty hand is an empty hand. The 4/6 arms rules don't say anything at all about empty hands, just that you can only wield items with active hands. I just today posted a thread about the RAW interpretation of that rule resulting in nonsense and it seems Paizo agrees, because they had ALREADY IMPLENTED the rules text change I suggested. The Shobhad have 4 arms and thier version of the 4 arms rules simply says "you wield items only with active hands".... which doesn't seem different from "you can only wield items with active hands" but in fact is, and has the result that you can in fact hold and use most items with non-active hands, as well as (if not holding anything) use them for all the things an empty hand can do.
You can add the Animists "Garden of Healing" spell to that list. It works in the same way as the Soothe spell, only with an emanation and at a rate of d4/rank per turn for up to 10 turns. This makes it fairly useless in combat (you will heal all enemies, even the undead) but absolutely amazing for post combat healing.
Yaoguai also seems good for aliens. Obviously most of the lore would be scrapped, but an awakened energy cloud / computer program / mold colony that decided to take humanoid form is a solid a sci-fi trope. The "Born of Item" heritage seems especially appropriate for awakened machinery.
So AFAICT the new starfinder2e rules for a Soldier’s Primary target doesn’t say that they ignore the unwieldy trait. Is this intentional? Trying to get an official ruling so I can produce 3rd party stuff. Correct, it does not ignore the Unwieldy trait. Unwieldy says "you can't use an unwieldy weapon more than once per round to Strike and can't use it to Strike as part of a reaction, such as Reactive Strike." So with Primary Target, you make a Strike (as directed by Primary Target)... and then make an Area Attack that includes that target. Area Attack is not a strike, so is not blocked by the Unwieldy trait. I see no problem there. If you could make two area attacks in a turn (say you are level 20 and have the Bullet Typhon feat) then you would only be able to use Primary Target once, and would probably use it only on your first attack. But I think we can assume that Unwieldy is working as intended in that case!
I hadn't thought about the Swashbuckler. You're absolutely right, it is beyond absurd that the swashbuckler gains panache for just wandering around the battlefield. It's not absurd, because it doesn't happen. Tumble through has the Bravado trait when used by a swashbuckler. Bravado: Actions with this trait can grant panache, depending on the result of the check involved. If you succeed at the check on a bravado action, you gain panache ... No check, no panache. No trying to pass through enemy, no check. No change is required for Swashbuckler. Or, IMO, for Liturgist. Yes, the Liturgist can sustain by using Tumble Through without being anywhere near an enemy. What they CAN'T do is use something like hast to gain a stride move which then gives them a free sustain, because Tumble through and Stride aren't the same thing. It's not an ideal rule in terms of naming, but it works in terms of game balance. |
