pauljathome's page

I'd still say that a class that's undertuned if you don't pick a certain overtuned feat would still be undertuned,

I largely agree with you. You think the class needs more than I think it does but it could definitely do with some quality of life improvements.

But at this point in the development cycle we're just not going to see huge wholesale changes. The best we can hope for (and I think this is possible) is some extra feats and maybe an automatic upgrade to the number of traits a Solarian weapon gets at L5 or the like (which totally doesn't address the issue :-()

As for mobility, the heavy armor problem goes away at L3 with an armor upgrade. But yeah, things that boost speed are going to be really valuable to Solarions.

Which leads back to my (our?) basic conclusion - its fine when built "well" but there are probably only a few cases which can be considered "well" built.

pauljathome wrote:

Given that Exemplars abilities all come from items I’d expect considerable table variation on what is and is not allowed. Definitely in the “check with your GM” category

Abilities of Weapon Ikons would work when the Ikon mentions Unarmed Attacks, like Gleaming Blade or Hands of the Wilding do. Those that do not mention Unarmed Attacks but Weapon, like Barrow's Edge, would not.

Body Ikons are not items, so they should work.

Worn Ikons are indeed items but the Immanence fits the "constant abilities of your gear still function" rule and the Transcendence is not activating an item, so does not break the "you can't activate any items." rule.

I wouldn't expect universal agreement on the above by all GMs. I'm not at all sure that I'd rule that way (haven't given it any thought but it is hitting my "That sounds dodgy" button).

Note that my responsse to "But the rules clearly say ...." would be to just cut and paste the above paragraph. Many GMs do not follow what YOU (or I, not trying to be personal) think are RAW.

Given that Exemplars abilities all come from items I’d expect considerable table variation on what is and is not allowed. Definitely in the “check with your GM” category

Calling out the strangeness, Fenna makes a knowledge check
Raw dice: 1d20 ⇒ 9

That is sufficient for her to realize that some, but not necessarily all, of your opponents are something akin to a Faceless Stalker transformed to be exactly identical to the human soldiers.

Unlike normal Faceless Stalkers, however, these seem to have DR 5/- (or, at least, slashing weapons do not overcome their DR). A rather scary thought.

You know that one of the guards is definitely this kind of Faceless stalker, one isn't, and the rest you aren't sure about. Note that you're not sure the other one isn't a normal Faceless Stalker, you'd have to hit him with a bludgeoning weapon to be sure

I am absolutely incompetent with google slides :-(. No idea how to mark individual enemies. So, the one to the NW IS a faceless stalker, the one to the NE is NOT this weird new faceless stalker, all the rest are unclear at this point

Saw it Wednesday. Highly recommend it, at least if you like dogs. No idea how well it would work for somebody who didn't like dogs.

Indy really is such a Good Boy

It would definitely be nice to have more classes but 6 (8 if you include the 2 playtest classes) is definitely enough to be getting along with for now.

And the classes are significantly more versatile than you're giving credit for. My SF2e experience so far has been completely in SFS (and some of the playtest stuff).

If you start at level 2 or are playing a human then most characters can just about dump Dex if they want (Medium Armor proficiency either via Soldier archetype or general feat). And I've seen characters do exactly that. Either rely on spells or Str and melee attacks assuming you've got some way to get into close combat (eg, flight).

If you think an Operative is Mid you're pretty much wrong. That +2 to hit is huge.

Solarian doesn't seem particularly mid to me either. Can be pure Str based, can use both Str and Dex. Getting Str to damage on ranged (short range, admittedy) and a reaction attack are pretty good features. And I've seen several different builds (reach weapon with shield, dex/Str, pure Str).

While I agree that it is ambiguous I am firmly in the camp that BOTH damages increase at the noted levels.

If we assume the Envoy has a Cha of +4 at L1, that is a quite reasonable amount. But +5 at L10 is a much smaller amount relatively speaking. +6 at L17 and +7 at L20 are getting close to no value at all.

Getting a +5 at L15 while your allies are getting a +4 just seems totally and utterly wrong and under powered.

I love them both as a player and as a GM, but only if they're used as tools and NOT as a ridiculous straight jacket.

I REALLY love playing characters with strong restrictions on what they'll do, whether those are self imposed or externally imposed.

But the key is that the code HAS to be flexible and nuanced in practice, not a short list that mostly works that is then rigidly applied even when it doesn't.

I think that it is FAR, FAR better for the conversation to go

GM : So, why does your character, a character who worships Shelyn, think it is acceptable to destroy this piece of artwork?

Player: Well, it is a combination of the fact that this particular art work is totally derivative and so has no intrinsic merit combined with the fact that it was created by the sacrifice of many artistic souls and ..........

than
GM: You can't do that or Shelyn will punish you.

With decent roleplayers the answer to the "Why" question is almost certainly nuanced, reasonable and well thought out and, if it is, the GM should go along with it (the player is just about always going to have a much better handle on the PC's motivations than the GM).

Sometimes the answer from the player is "Uh, you're right. I wasn't paying enough attention. I will NOT destroy the piece of art". We all make mistakes from time to time, a gentle nudge in the form of a question can sometimes be the perfect solution.

With poor roleplayers (or very immature ones, regardless of their age) the answer is often "For the Lols" or "Well. its convenient" or "What is an Anathema?". Only THEN should the GM say "Uh. NO" and, when convenient, have a private discussion with what they expect from a roleplaying game.

I'm reposting this from another theread.

I think the designers did a superb job on Starfinder 2e in general but they do have a smaller, less experienced team and, more importantly, we're talking a brand new game vs one that has had several years to fix balance points and improve.

There are some rough edges but so far I've seen nothing that is particularly egregious. Every class and ancestry is playable and none dominate the game.

And yes, I'd include a L9 crit negation feat in that analysis. A great many of my characters would absolutely take Multitalented over that.

The issue I have, is if you have a Rhythm Mystic in the party, the status bonuses from Anthem and Get 'Em don't stack. At that point, Anthem is the far more dependable buff of the two, forcing the Envoy to do something other than Get 'Em. That's where things start to fall apart because all these other directives seem to be designed as fallback options, not primary options..

I also very much had that worry, especially in SFS where you don't know either the other players nor their characters.

But it seems to be working out ok. Twice now I've played at tables with both a Rhythm Mystic and an Envoy and both times the Envoy player seemed quite happy that Rhythm was also a thing. They were still getting their own +4 to damage for a single action (essentially) and could do other things.

In a campaign with the same characters I'd very definitely have a session 0 discussion with both players to make sure both were happy with it. But the overlap isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Any update on whether there will be foundry support for this?

I also love that it's additive, because I was able to say to my players, "Hey guys! I'm gonna make Piloting a base skill in Pathfinder, also, all of its feats are available too. (then a mild rebalance to make Trick Driver useful for both Pathfinder and Starfinder, and voila).

While I agree with Ectar that it makes Starfinder 2e a slightly worse game I think using a very slight superset of the Pathfinder 2e ruleset was absolutely the right thing to do both from a marketing point of view but also to leverage much more of the Pathfinder 2e base.

Couple of responses:
1. I support the idea of compatability. I think it's gone too far, with Starfinder losing some of its identity to conform to Pathfinder's mold.

To give a single counterexample, I've voiced the option of our next campaign being Starfinder. A MASSIVE bonus to that was my being able to say "The underlying game system is identical except Starfinder has piloting and computers and a couple of extra conditions".

The more things I'd have needed to add to that list "Well, nature is now Biological Sciences and Nature", "There is now a skill Physics" etc the less that bonus becomes. Combined with fears that there are now too many skills to cover.

I think a lot of the concerns here are somewhat overblown.

The next campaign I run is possibly going to be Starfinder. My cunning plan is to tell my players "starfinder material is encouraged. Pathfinder material may or may not be allowed and may or may not be altered. If you want to use anything ask me".

Then I'll look at specific requests and decide then what to allow and change. After having played an entire 4 playtest adventures and maybe 10 SFS level 1-2 adventures I feel fairly confident that I'll make reasonable decisions. Given that they'll be made in the context of specific characters and a specific campaign I think it highly likely that my decisions will be better than those that would be found in a 100 page conversion guide issued by Paizo which will be primarily aimed at inexperienced GMs.

If somebody said they wanted to bring Starfinder material into a Pathfinder campaign my reaction would be "likely not but ask. Maybe"

The key here is "specific character and campaign". A flying archer is going to be a much greater issue than a flying 2 handed weapon melee fighter. A flying character is going to be a much greater issue in a wilderness campaign than in a dungeon crawl.

Would a conversion guide be nice? Sure. Is it even remotely necessary? Not at all. Is it a good use of Paizo resources?. Not my decision to make but I'd guess not.

How could “you transform into a form granted by a spell, you gain all the effects of the form you chose from a version of the spell heightened to darkened forest form's rank.”

Ah, the old "The way that I read an ability is OBVIOUSLY correct, only an idiot could possibly disagree" argument.

Also, of course, damage, AC, attack bonus are NOT changed by your form.

But to answer your question, the spell has the polymorph trait. So, when you cast the spall you get the transformation effect. When you sustain the spell, you do NOT transform, you instead "change to a different shape". Note that "change" is NOT "transform".

And before you claim that I'm a hypocrite, I'm NOT saying that my way of reading the spell is obviously the only way to read the spell. But it is a perfectly reasonable way of reading it.

Uh, Darkened Forest Form is incredibly useful and quite powerful even if you don't get temp HP more than once. In fact, for balance reasons Id definitely NOT allow it to get temps on a sustain.

In my opinion the sheer flexibility of Darkened Forest Form can be immense, especially when you get to the Elemental Forms.

pauljathome wrote:

oimandibloons wrote:

Not sure if this is proper errata territory, but the grenade launcher distances look too big compared to weapons (or weapon and spell ranges are too short compared to grenade launcher ranges). I mean, what's going on here?

I find it strange that the grenade launcher has a much, much smaller range than just throwing a grenade.

What do you mean?

A thrown grenade is 70 feet.

A Grenade Launcher is 280 feet, 4 times the range (up to 490 for the ultimate version, 7 times the range). And these aren't range increments, it's a flat range, like if you were using a spell.

Sorry, you're quite right. I was thinking of the undermounted grenade launcher weapon upgrade. Range 20 ft at L0, at L16 with a range of 50 feet it is still less than just throwing the grenade.

Sort of makes sense from a game mechanics point of view but makes absolutely no sense from an in world point of view. And, even from a game mechanics point of view, those upgrade slots are valuable so I'm not at all sure that this is a necessary nerf.

Not sure if this is proper errata territory, but the grenade launcher distances look too big compared to weapons (or weapon and spell ranges are too short compared to grenade launcher ranges). I mean, what's going on here?

I find it strange that the grenade launcher has a much, much smaller range than just throwing a grenade.

Ravingdork wrote:

The power level of rogues before and after Gang Up is pretty hard to ignore, especially when comparing premaster and Remaster Gang Up.

Very much a "must have or feel weaker than others" type of option.

It was a "must have" before the Remaster and now it is better. But it doesn't break the game.

I don't actually think Gang Up is a must have.

If the group has 2 or 3 melee martials playing intelligently Flanking is pretty easy to arrange anyway. Now, Gang Up makes it absolutely trivial (especially with a reach weapon) but there isn't a huge difference between "pretty easy" and "absolutely trivial".

Its very nice, of course, and a very common choice for a melee rogue. But I've played and seen played characters who took a different L6 feat for a particular build.

I've mentioned it before but I think it deserves a post of its own.

When evaluating the Solarion I think whether or not you consider Starfinder its own game or just an add on to Pathfinder (or think all of Pathfinder is an add on to Starfinder) is going to greatly influence things. This alone may be responsible for nearly all the differences of opinion on this thread.

Right now NOBODY has a clue what percentage of games will be pure Starfinder, what percentage will be "Mix and match totally freely, go wild" and what percentage will be "Starfinder but some Pathfinder stuff can creep in as well". Except all 3 of those types of games WILL exist.

Personally, I strongly believe that we should be evaluating the operative ONLY in terms of Starfinder options. Starfinder is its own game with its own assumptions. So, in that context the Pathfinder 2 fighter is as irrelevant as the Starfinder 1 Operative or the Mutants and Masterminds PL10 Superhero (spoiler, the Mutants and Masterminds superhero kicks all the others asses).

But if we ARE going to bring in all of Pathfinder 2 surely its a little unfair to compare it against what is considered pretty much universally the best Martial class in Pathfinder 2e in terms of doing damage, the Fighter. Yeah, it might well lose in that comparison. But so do most Pathfinder 2e martials.

And you can't just do a straight single target damage comparison because the Solarion does a fair bit more (or can, at least) with its feats. Its got decent AoE, decent control, etc.

Lia Wynn wrote:

While that would be generally true, Pauljathome had mentioned that he would be using Flying on a Dragonborn, so IMO at least, he could, indeed, pull creatures up and then drop them.

What, 10 feet? You’re only pulling enemies within 15 feet of you, so you’re not exactly dropping them much farther than they already are in the near-totality of cases.

So, I pull them up `10 or 15 feet and drop them. Absent them having cat fall, flying or the like they then take 5-7 points of damage (no save) and land prone.

Seems pretty darn good to me.

I think that's the scale where you really want to use some wargame for the session, instead of trying to tie it to PF2 mechanics at all.

I'm a great believer in listening to the PCs plans on what they are going to do to influence the situation and then frantically waving my hands as I describe what happens, incorporating as much of their plans as I can manage.

Depending on the situation, sometime they'll be able to decide who wins the battle, other times all they'll be doing is rescuing some people from the unstoppable horde.

And the reason we don't run into a lot of level 10s going up against level 5 challenges is that its kinda boring. Maybe a few checks over a few minutes to flex on challenges that aren't threats anymore, but there isn't challenge in this, nothing is really at stake when you are +5 level.

Typical play takes you to harder and harder challenges. The bad guys are richer with harder locks and straighter walls, and deadlier weapons on top of that. We get this impression nothing is easier because we rarely turn around and engage with something that is no longer on our radar. If you do turn around and your GM artificially increases difficulty you should talk to the GM about it, but this isn't what I think happens at most tables.

I love to have an occassional encounter that is way below the characters, ESPECIALLY if it can be essentially the same as one that they did a few levels back. Makes it obvious that they ARE growing in power in world and not just on a treadmill with Bigger Numbers.

And yes, you are expected to share harder and harder challenges. But the GM should definitely try and make sure that it is clear, in world, WHY the challenges are harder. The city guard in Axis is a lot tougher than the city guard in your starting village, this wall has overhangs, icy spots and birds flying into your face. Although it can be quite hard to do this organically as a GM and we all fail to do it well from time to time

(I also know in at least one of my games, the other players would react badly to what this player is doing. Animal cruelty is just a hard nope and it would turn into an out of character problem

I know that behaviour like this would definitely drive me from a game.

The player is either treating her character as a cartoon with no feelings or like a psychopath. I've got better things to do than spend my gaming time with a scumbag like that.

Just posting so you know I'm here and ready to go.

Unfortunately, I'm heading to bed right now :-(. Will read through all this and post probably tomorrow afternoon)

The biggest discrepancy I feel when looking at Assurance is that it is more useful for skills where you do not invest in stats and items, and thus do not reach the highest results. Which is extremely counter-intuitive to me.

Yeah, I have real problems with this too.

Especially in cases where my gnome is as good (when using assurance) at tripping as is the minotaur barbarian. It just really, really breaks my willing suspension of disbelief

I am glad the feat is incredibly limited.

Its roll is to make easy things certain and not really much more than that.
If it did eliminate the need to roll for on level challenges I would just ban it anyway.

But it IS more than that in some cases. In a way that I think hurts the game.

One fairly common use of assurance is to use assurance athletics to try and pull a maneuver on some low save opponent as your third MAP action.

And I think this is a BAD thing. First, you often see these on something silly like a gnome with his Str of -1 where it is just silly. But, more importantly, suddenly you're getting a cool in combat use of a feat that is clearly mostly designed to replace PF1's take 10.

why then, would anyone pick an Arrangement besides Degradant?

After all, Degradant has Defy Gravity, which gives you flight speed

A fight speed really isn't all that special in Starfinder.

From a pragmatic point of view, it is also very nearly an exact duplicate of electric arc which is already on the primal list. So there is no NEED for it to be on the primal list (yeah, I know, both are on the Arcane List)

In general, they've done a remarkably good job of

1) Making it mechanically nearly the same as PF2 so there is almost no learning curve beyond learning the details of your class/ancestry and adjusting to the new Ranged Meta (EVERYTHING has a decent ranged attack, some combats might take place completely at range. Combine that with EVERYTHING sapient has an AoE attack (grenade, if nothing else))

2) Changing the feel of the game significantly so that it FEELS like Science Fiction at least as much as a pure fantasy. Obviously, some of this is going to be subjective. But, for me at least, so far even the "dungeon crawls" have felt quite different than their PF2 equivalents.

Not a clue about deathclaws but I think the stance you’re thinking of may be from the clawdancer archetype.

Seems like an awakened animal may also work

But if I'm sitting down to build out a character I'm going to be playing about once a week for the next two or three years, yeah, I do actually usually need both a bit of the class feats and something else to have a good time.

Note, I'm NOT trying to say you're wrong in any way. You get to decide what makes a good time for you. Just expressing my own personal opinion.

I have a significantly different opinion on this. While I agree that lacking Free Archetype can make a small (very small, in my view) number of character concepts unachievable (or at least not achievable in a fun way) there are still zillions of character concepts that actually ARE quite achievable.

If I'm playing in a non FA game I just choose one of the concepts that I CAN build. And there are still a great many concepts that are fun (to me) AND that I haven't played before. Heck, there are still classes that I've never played.
.

Are strength bonuses when halved …. Rounded up or down?

Down

Now granted, we don't have to outright get rid of greys I don't think.

I think maybe we do.

To use an analogy, even after these many years (decades?) I STILL basically equate 1/2 lings with hobbits. All the attempts to give them a different culture, a different appearance, etc etc etc haven't completely worked with me. When somebody sits down at a table with a 1/2 ling my mental image is still Sam or Bilbo or Frodo or Merry or Pippin.

And I know that at least some others share this to at least some extent as jokes about hairy feet or rings of invisibility occur.

It can be ABSURDLY hard to change peoples concepts of something (ancestry in this case).

pauljathome wrote:

I think that is some serious hyperbole and exaggeration.

Someone's experience being different than yours doesn't mean they're lying.

I never accused you of lying. I accused you of hyperbole and exaggeration. I stand by that.

Unless you think getting an extra 9 hit points at level 6 as a wizard counts as "an almost non-existant" power up.

Obviously, with ANY option player choices will determine how powerful it is and the range of power for just about ANY option always hits "almost non-existant". But you can't evaluate an option based on players not using it to gain power when you're trying to determine if it does, indeed, potentially add power to characters.

I'll again reiterate that I do NOT think it adds a huge or game breaking amount of power. But, in at least some circumstances, it very very clearly adds more than "an almost non-existant" amount of power.

It's just fundamentally a better way to play Pathfinder. It opens up choices dramatically, allows for a significant increase in build variety, greatly helps classes that are otherwise expected to draw on their own feat pools for power, all while being extremely manageable in terms of vertical power increase (i.e. almost nonexistent).

It can be a little bit much at first, but after playing around with it becomes pretty clear that Pathfinder just suffers as a game without it. There's basically no reason not to.

I think that is some serious hyperbole and exaggeration. As a player I like it as much as the next guy, as a GM I'm wary of it (partly for power reasons, partly because it can lead to serious analysis paralysis with some players). If I give it out as a GM I usually give it out in a fairly constrained way.

But to say that Pathfinder suffers as a game without it is just sheer exaggeration. It does just fine without Free Archetype. Its almost as if the game itself and all the published adventures (bar one that I'm aware of) are intended to be played withOUT Free Archetype :-).

And to claim that the vertical power increase is "almost non existent" is sheer nonsense. It is very definitely quite noticeable if the players choose options for power. Note, I'm NOT saying that the power increase is necessarily a huge problem but it most certainly is a whole lot more than "almost non existent".

As a new GM I'd recommend NOT giving this out, at least at first. You can always allow it later once you have a better feel for your players, characters, and your own sense of comfort with the rules.

If players are allowed free choice it WILL increase their power level. Not by a huge amount but they will be stronger

heads up Paul, *They*

I made the same mistake.

Thanks for pointing this out. I apologize. I assure you all (ESPECIALLY Maya should they read this) that I just didn't realize their pronoun. No disrespect or insult was intended.

I think it makes the most sense when you view the Starfinder 2e classes as standalone classes trying to explain a game to the audience.

The Solarian is also the "Totally not a Jedi, really, completely different, honest" class. Every game needs one of these :-)

But I think that your basic point is that Starfinder 2e classes should be analyzed only with other Starfinder 2e classes in mind. This is presumably going to be the case for the vast majority of campaigns and is almost certainly what Paizo is primarily concerned about and is balancing around.

And with just the starfinder 2e classes the Solarion seems pretty cool and useful to me. Whether or not a Pathfinder 2e class covers more or less the same territory (possibly better) is pretty irrelevant

we also have the incredible Maya on the Paizo Team (whom I got to meet at GenCon. Amazingly, they're even nicer in person!)

Hmm

I find that INCREDIBLY hard to believe as she is so very very nice on line I wouldn't have thought there much room to be still nicer :-).

My personal suspicion is GMs still traumatized by PF1 and thinking that they have to nerf anything that the players come up with in order to not have the players optimize all of the challenge out of the game.

Maybe. But nearly all of us have an issue or two where the unreality of the rules REALLY bugs us and we are at least tempted to make a ruling.

By the rules when in encounter mode a non mature animal companion does NOTHING unless ordered unless the GM decides that it does something.

Most GMs, for example, would have the animal move out of harmful terrain even if not ordered. But many would NOT have the animal automatically accompany you as that is a significant advantage for you to get for free.

Now, if the companion is mature it gets 1 action for free and that is quite often used to just keep up with you.

Basically, the action cost to command aan animal is an important factor in balancing the animal, especially at lower levels

In exploration mode things are much fuzzier.

I am super excited to play a skittermander in PF2, but I still haven't decided what to play. Obviously, Time Traveler background will be fun, but I don't know what else I want to do!

Bard, rogue and thaumaturge all have their appeal with this ancestry - but I have made several bards and thaumaturges before, and at least one rogue.

So I think I'll be diving through archetypes and finding something weird that I want to turn into a character.

I'm pretty sure mine will be a swashbuckler. Doing a lot of aiding with One For All, of course. And the image of this little toothy 6 armed furry thing swinging into battle just amuses the heck out of me :-).

Hello everyone.

What I'm about to say may be a bit convoluted, but here goes.
The Primary Target feature literally says:

"Before you make an area attack with a weapon (such as from the Area Fire or Auto-Fire actions), you can make a ranged Strike as a free action with the same weapon against a single creature in the area, who's selected as your primary target."

In my opinion, there's a subtle difference between that ranged strike and a ranged strike action.
Let's all remember that a strike is nothing more than an attack roll, and a strike action involves the attack roll and damage.

I think Primary Target is designed to implement a debuff, not a free attack, but of course, this is just my opinion.

I suppose we'll clear up any doubts when Paizo releases the errata.

I'm sorry if the text may be difficult to read. I used Google Translate; my English is very poor.

I don't think you're right. That is WAY too subtle an implication to expect people to get. If Paizo intended that they'd say something like "That does no damage" as they do in other cases.

I also think that would weaken the soldier too much. They'd go back to basically not caring very much about their to hit number.

When I was looking at the animist, I was interested in the Medium Practice. That practice looked pretty cool. Once I read how the vessel spells work, it became apparent the only viable Practice was Liturgist. Any other practice was going to have serious problems with action economy with the vessel spell sustain.

Its not quite that bad. It is hardly a disaster if on some round or other you don't sustain your vessel spell. Its only 1 action to recast it and you pretty quickly have 3 focus points.

The Liturgist IS definitely best, no argument there. But the other practices are definitely viable. Well, probably not with your groups play style but they're viable for the more usual play styles.

It’s legal in PFS if you play a SFS game before Sept IIRC

Its a bit difficult to do the math as it is going to depend greatly on circumstances, but I think that some of the time the sniper just doesn't bother to aim. That fatal D12 is VERY attractive for the first shot, but it is kind of very nice to get your reaction in once the reaction triggers almost all of the time.

If the target has cover then you DEFINITELY aim. Removing the penalty to hit is far more important than the extra damage. But a lot of the time the reaction attack is going to be worth more than the Aim extra damage.

So, I think you do
Round 1 : Aim (probably moving too), fire, reload
Hair Trigger
Round 2 : Reload, shoot, reload
Hair Trigger

a lot. You also do the Aim/Shoot/Reload thing a lot too.

In sum, I think a Sniper is a fine specialization in general. You get a useful feat. If you have another character or two supporting you with recharge weapon then you do a boatload of damage. And all the other Specializations are fairly meh (well, Striker is literally game changing :-)) anyway so the opportunity cost of not picking one of them is pretty low.

Monks were shafted indirectly (they remained static while everyone else improved).

Monks sort of got a buff.

Their flurry of blows is no longer poachable so ONLY monks get to do it.

Pre Remaster, any unarmed build (and quite a few others) would dip into monk to get flurry.

So, their niche is now THEIR niche.

But travel to Earth is intergalactic,

Do you happen to have a citation for Earth being in a different galaxy? I don't remember that from playing Rasputin