biphenyl's page

We just finished our third session using the playtest rules last night, and ran into a situation that *felt* like it ought be possible but the rules text seemed to conflict.

Our Solarian has a Commercial Antigrav Harness that he found on the Bloom during It Came from the Vast! He was on a roof in standard-gravity Absalom Station and wondered if he could activate the harness to potentially Leap to the ground without taking falling damage.

The text for low gravity reads:

An environment with low gravity is liberating for creatures accustomed to normal or higher gravity. A character can jump twice as high and as far, can lift or carry twice their normal amount, and doubles the range of thrown weapons.

So no mention of falling damage. But out of curiosity we compared with the text for low gravity in Pathfinder GM Core, which reads:

As in normal gravity, bodies of great mass act as centers of gravity, but the force relative to the size of the body is less than in the Universe. The Bulk of all creatures and objects is halved, meaning creatures acclimated to normal gravity can carry twice as much and jump twice as high and far. Physical ranged attacks are possible up to the twelfth range increment (instead of the sixth). Creatures that fall in low gravity take no damage for the first 10 feet of a fall, and then take bludgeoning damage equal to a quarter of the remaining distance it fell.

In this case, it would have meant taking no fall damage — 20ft fall reduced to 10ft for a total of 2 damage, which would have been mitigated by his Tactical Dermal Plating.

I went with the Starfinder Playtest Rulebook version since that takes precedence but wondered if falling damage was an accidental or intended omission here!

One of the neatest things about the current Striking Spell ability is that it makes having a held charge a unique state, which is unique to the Magus in 2e. Think of it like Panache. Since you aren't beholden to discharging it as part of the casting action (like in 1e), this opens up a lot more tactical options and synergistic feat options. Consider these scenarios, where I'll use everyone's favorite vanilla option, Shocking Grasp with Slide Casting:

Begin turn outside an enemy's reach. 2 Actions: Cast shocking grasp with Striking Spell. Use slide casting synthesis to free move into melee range. 1 Action: Combat Assessment to strike the enemy and also gain information about their weaknesses. Better yet, if you have haste or hasted assault, 1 Action Feint and then Quickened 1 Action Strike.

Begin turn in melee range. 2 Actions: Cast shocking grasp, but use Slide casting to move out of melee range first. 1 Action: Demoralize, weakening enemies for your allies. Next turn: 1 Action: position yourself in melee, with 2 enemies adjacent. 2 Actions: Spell Swipe, getting 2 max level shocking grasps for 1 spell slot!

There's a lot of getting hung up on the fact that this thing named Striking Spell doesn't behave exactly like the 1e ability named Spellstrike, which *both* gave you a free attack *and* removed the need for a separate attack roll from the spell, either of which would be extremely strong abilities in 2e. There is a way cooler design space to consider if you aren't stuck discharging the spell as part of the cast action.

Rather than combining this all into a single boring probably 3-action activity that you'll be doing every turn to be balanced, let's consider abilities that might come from feats or features that interact well with the Stored Spell state. Maybe something like:

Conduit Strike
Feat 1
1-Action
*Requirements* You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell, and it requires a spell attack roll.
Using your weapon or body as a conduit, you channel your spell to strike true. Make a Strike with the weapon/body storing the spell. If it hits, you gain a +1 status bonus to hit with the stored spell. At level 5 this bonus increases +2, and at level 15 it increases to +4.

Or if you like high-stakes gambling:

Desparate Discharge
1-Action
*Requirements* You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell, and it requires a spell attack roll.
Make a Strike with the weapon/body storing the spell. Use the result of the Strike's attack roll in place of the Spell Attack roll normally required by the spell. If the attack misses, the stored spell is discharged with no effect.

Abilities like this start to get to the feeling of the 1e ability, while also playing nice with the stored spell state, which is the ability unique to the magus class in this playtest. They don't meanwhile limit the design space for other martial abilities like Spell Swipe that also want to make use of it.