siegfriedliner's page

So calling stunt damage forceful maneuvers and allowing it to apply to attack actions that don't do damage would make it easier to apply and avoid double dipping, but at that poiny your more a wrestler than a daredevil

It is going to be unfortunate for the party that goes hard into fire damage and doing all this weakness proc stuff on a final boss who ends up being unexpectedly resistant or immune to fire damage.

the spirit vunerability one is the most reliable unless the final boss is a construct greater astral ensures full effect.

Holy is a good rune, astral is a good rune, brilliant is a good rune. Shining Symbol is 2 actions for 10 minute aura

The new weakness meta is a mistake i hope gets re-errata quickly.

I kind of hope they stack, if your facing a swarm of straw man with heavy area and fire vunerability it makes sense for a fire cone to be more effective than an ice one.

Whats intersting is this reminds me a lot of the alchemist discourse from the orginal handbook but i am not hearing the oh but actually psychics are great crowd i suppose that is because what they offer is directly and easily comparable to other classes pre-core alchemist was so different and complicated that it defied obvious comparison.

So lets look at the creatures with high resisst physical or resist all.

Ghosts - new iw is worse because old one did more damage and had the force trait

Remastered Golems - resist spells and resist physical old IW weapon was better because higher damage

Creatures with resist physical vs metals new IW is better if DR is high.

So new invisible weapom is better vs enemies with high/ extreme resist physical without resist spells or being bypassed by force. This is going to be a small number of creatures.

Rogue should be in a tier on its own. You can use rogue archetype on any class and improve the class. Whether it's a martial taking something like Mobility or Gang Up or a caster taking Mobility and using it increase their number of proficiency skill ups. It is the multiclass archetype that offers so much to any class.

This is on top of being an S tier class as a base class.

Don't get me wrong i love the rogue archytpe its the one i pick most often in free archytype (i love skills, I love mobility I love gang up) but I am not convinced its better than the champion.

I was wandering do you think there is a signifcant balance need to make amped spells incompatiable with Meta Magic feats ?

Do you think they added that as future proofing to avoid potentially broken combinations in the future. Or are there some "illegal" combo of amp and metamagic that would be broken ?

So Cleric and fire ray/ withering grasps + gouging claws for at will damage is fairly comparable in damage to old invisible weapon and the cleric domain gives you access to better feats than psychic for the most part.as well as coming online 2 levels earlier. So im terms of total power magus hasn't changed just the psychic. Obviously post remaster all bets are off for the magus but based on all of the remasters it has a 60% chance of being better than worse.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Might be time to find a system that better serves your needs

There are no other systems. PF2E is better than D&D5E and pointing out what doesnt work mathematically for PF2E to change for PF3E and you coming in here telling me to find a diff system is as dumb as me pointing out what problems our gov has and some random person saying, "if you dont like america the way it is, leave." Lol

Yes there are there are lots few of them might have the numbers or the draw of 5e and pf 2e but its stupid to discount them.

exequiel759 wrote:

There's even examples of really cheap magic items which are used in certain regions which are widely accesible to even the townsfolk, so why make it so non-mages can't activate certain magic items other because it used be like that in older editions?

Because casters are special. Really special. And must be.

Don't agree? Than all casters must get their 8-10 hps per level, any armor they want and weapons mastery on the level of melee classes if not the Figther. How is that you said? Oh, yes: "PF2e is built around heroic fantasy"! Great! Let's get rid of "squishy casters" once and for all! I'm all for it.

Casters are special because they have a good number of high level spells (for what ever you are). Martials gaining assess to a few spells at low dc's doesn't break the game.

Obviously tailwind is interesting its a bit of a non brainer one feat a level 2 wand is cheap for +10 bonus to speed and speed optomisation is important.

Setting Magus aside, the problem with it is that the Dedication is way out of whack with other Dedication feats. It gives you a LOT for a single feat, including the signature ability of the class.

It's not the strongest dedication feat compared to spirit warrior and exemplar it's weaker, compared to two weapon fighter (double slice), paladin (scaling armour proficiency, skill access to a strong focus spell and reaction), rogue (light armour proficiency, skill feat and two proficiencies), blessed one (powerful focus spell) it's on par.

I am not declaring it as weak it's a top tier dedication but given it's I'm the middle of the best dedication feats it's not an outlier.

On the one hand psychic is the best caster multiclass dedication feat because it gives a lot in one feat.

On the other hand its not the best caster archytype being weaker than bard and sorcerer as a whole imo (its at least comparable).

Its also not the best multiclass dedication feat, rogue and champions both get a lot for their entry feat enough to be comparable.

Its not the best archtype dedication feat,the two weapon fighting archytype, blessed one, spirit warrior, exemplar all get powerful abilities you can build around that are stronger or at least comparable.

People probably think its too strong for 2 reasons magus synergy (more an issue with magus than psychic imo) and because its nice as a free gift with human and ancient elf free dedication feat which sees it as a common pick.

Given the main issue is a magus issue it think adjustments are needwd there rather than here.

Squiggit wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

suddenly turned it into

To be clear, the text of the tumble through ability has not changed meaningfully since PF2 released, so "suddenly turned into" is an incorrect assessment.

This isn't even the first time it's come up in rules discussions.

It's never been a replacement or equivalent to stride.

I don't know about you but I have had at least a dozen ocasions where tumble through has amounted to nothing but a stride because I have failed the check or misjduged difficult terrain and a large enemy space and couldn't make it all the way through.

So my tumble through followed by a strike on an enemy was in practice the exact same in both actions costs and effects as me striding and striking. See fairly equivalent to me.

siegfriedliner wrote:

The tumble through action is clear how it works and Michael response was clear that developers were aware of how the action works and built the ability accordingly.

Your free to do things at your table how you like but you are basically allowing a vibe check to overrule relatively clear mechanics.

It is cheesing a rule, pure and simple.

Tumble Through is not a replacement for a Stride. They are separate actions.

I agree they are separate actions a stride action allows you to move move your land speed across the ground.

A tumble though allows you to stride, swim, fly, climb as long as you have the respective speed and during this movement you can (but not must) attempt to move through another creatures space.

The tumble through action is clear how it works and Michael response was clear that developers were aware of how the action works and built the ability accordingly.

Your free to do things at your table how you like but you are basically allowing a vibe check to overrule relatively clear mechanics.

Dragon quite often have fly speeds in the several hundred feet and so are extremely adept at hit and run tactics and the spellcasting variant can keep 120ft away whilat area effecting pcs.

In an open space they can be impossible for certain parties to deal with if they skirmish or even if the party can skirmish the fights can be drawn out games of tag which can make an encounter take too long.

But this does mean dragons are often uniquely challenging which fits for an archetype monster. Also interestingly fast speed seems more inconic to dragons in pathfinder 2e than breath weapons which you can find reskinned on a massive variety of monsters.

This is the theoretical max I think you can get with one round of buffing, this assumes you are a L18 bard for eternal composition who has grabbed All For One and beast master.

1st Action (hasted) + Corageous Anthem Fortimo +3 attack and damage to all allies

2nd Action Demoralise/ Scare to Death - Frightened Two

3rd Action - True Targets - Advantage roughly worth 4 points

4th Action - All For One

Free Action - Pet Flanks +2

Reaction - Aid + 4

So you give + 9ish too all allies in range of your effects (+5 with Advantage)
and that one special ally who is flanking with your pet gets +15ish (+11 with advantage).

Transpose is a tenth level summoner feat that lets you switch places with your eidolon (via teleportation) it's kind of cool.

I was thinking that for a necromancer having a similar feat to switch positions with their thralls would be very cool and would add some mobility to thralls they don't currently have.

Quote:

This is one of the things which I think shows how what the hobby treats as the traditional view on what meta-gaming is and what should be done about it are rooted in inherently GM-versus-players mentality.

To be honest, calling "metagaming" is usually a way to try to bludgeon disruptive players back into line. I don't think there's a consensus view on what is and isn't metagaming—and there definitely won't be one for a game designed to be a tactical game like PF2E.

Heck, "metagaming" is viewed very unusually in most online 2E discussion spaces. For example, when was the last time you heard anyone say, "But your magus has no reason to suddenly gain psychic powers—that's metagaming!" Yet that is precisely one way (and a very common way) to bludgeon people with the metagaming hammer in other games. "Why are you doing this optimized build that makes no sense for you in-character? That's metagaming!"

I also think there's never been a clear line across the hobby on what metagaming even is. A lot of puzzle-filled dungeon crawls are fairly metagamey, and are designed as challenges to the player rather than a challenge to the player's character. Is it metagaming to use OSR tactics in these situations, like the 10ft pole or using water to check for traps? Does it depend on if your character would think of it themselves? Different tables tend to fall in different places on this issue.

Besides, even if the person described in the original post is clearly being a bit silly, I think there's reasonable arguments not far from where they are. Things that are good play (like using Bon Mot before Synesthesia) can indeed begin to feel a bit metagamey to some sensibilities. I can reasonably see someone asking, "Why do you always insult them before you cast spells at them? That's oddly calculated and repetitive. Would your character really do that? Isn't it pretty mean? You're so nice out of combat." Likewise, it'd be fair to ask, "Why are you casting Fear all the time? Do you enjoy people being scared...

I take it as written that caster know that irritated and afraid enemies are more susceptible to mental magic and ruthlessly exploit any advantage they can get. Because exploiting all advantages is the only way to become and old or experienced adventurer.

Rune of Clumsiness
Whilst inscribed on a person they are clumsy 1

When invoked they must make a reflex save or fall prone and take some bludgeoning damage from a dramatic prattfall. Possibly 1d6 per two levels due to the inclusion of the prone effect.

Damaging runes scale in line with blast spells (fireball, lightning bolt etc) at 2d6 those damages can be fair high and usually just above that of a strike and are balanced against being two actions and only once per turn.

Now from reading the feats and actions are designed with spamming runes in mind so you can have 2-3 going off per average per round with a little optimisation. So it appears that the runes have been designed to be used several times a turn like strikes but without the limitations of MAP and with damage on par or better than strikes which seems stranger.

What is even stranger is how throughly the designers have been conservative especially in the playtest before this in limiting the damage of at will spell like abilities for example the kineticists could only dream of having a damaging effect that scales at 2d6 each level where the runic smith can do it multiple times per turn and later include some area effects with considerably smoother action economy.

Which has me questioning why the change to a more adverenturous design choice.

pH unbalanced wrote:

The one thing I just want to be sure and say is that I am not interested in playing a Runesmith as a blaster. I want to play it as a competent martial who can provide meaningful party buffs and other support. I would expect to get more value from etchings than from invoking.

This isn't to say that I don't want blasting to be viable -- because I hope it is able to support that playstyle for people who want it. I just hope that the power curve on the blasting isn't *so* high that they have to weaken the parts of the toolkit that I am actually interested in to keep its overall power in line.

Thank you.

When one imagines a martial Runesmith, do high explosives enter the picture? Heck, does tagging Runes on enemies themselves as one's default attack routine spring to mind? Right now, free hand + shield w/ boss/spikes is the best supported build.
This whole blaster aspect, esp. at will and competitive, boggles me.

what I am getting from the class in terms of imagery is more of an anime magic user who puts lots of exploding magic circles on thing. It's not an aesthetic I dislike.

This maybe be play style issue but if I am putting a lot of thralls near enemies it's probably to save my allies and actions to flank and that isn't the situation I would use necrotic bomb which I would probably use by placing a thrall next a several enemies and detonating on the spot.

I understand you point but why you will care about to use an Escape/Stand action when you can create another thrall with same action and Strike?

About critical in manuvers if you was able to critical success a thrall with a Trip you will just kill it like as you Strike it. If you use Grab and critical hit you will restrain it but as I said before try to escape makes no sense when you can create a new thrall with one-action without any checks.

Basically debuff thralls is senseless due how cheap and fragile they are and the fact that most focus spell doesn't really make then attack but uses then as fuel.

Mainly just for the 40hp grappling thrall, the 200 hp whacking thrall and the 400 hp thrall that leaves smaller thralls in its wake.

Currently there is a little uncertainty on what the DC for save based dcs (trip, tumble through etc) for thralls.

My take is that like AC if people use these maneuverd they get an automatic success but not a critical success.

So you can reliably tumble through them but they still are difficult terrain

It's worth noting that currently the focus spells thralls that move have no ability to stand up from prone so they probably need immunity to prone, grabbed or at least the ability to crawl, standup, escape ( probably using your spell attack).

I am not sure why bone spear doesn't start at 2d8.

I really like the necromancer it's cool and looks like it would be fun to play.

The most powerful feature the necromancer seem to have besides spellcasting is above average focus/ grave spells which are pretty cool and utilise their thrall mechanic.

But power wise I suspect it might be a little weak especially when compared to the new oracle and animist who have similar defences, double the spell slots and also very powerful focus spells which are comparable in strength with the necromancers grave spells.

Half the spell slots for class that seem to have similarish chassis seems like a fairly punishing. I wonder if the class could afford to be three slot ?

This is morevfeedback for the 20th level thrall grave spells but they need the option to get up from prone otherwise they are completely stymied by a 1 action trip.

That went away with alignment

SuperBidi wrote:

Easl wrote:

That sounds like a great build for Ruby Phoenix or another high level campaign. But, sometimes it's not the destination it's the journey. "My level 8+..." is for many campaigns close to the destination, it's not the journey. So I'm happy to see cleric get a class archetype that gives 'aura gish' as a hit-the-ground-running option.

At low level, the Battle Harbinger is fine as a bunch of rank 1 spells is a nice feature up to level 4. It's at level 5 that their Font starts being lackluster. At level 7, it's hardly a feature and that's the moment where you'll feel like a second grade character.

And while I agree the journey is important, no one cares about a character effectiveness at level 1. The end of the journey is much more important than the beginning.

I mean, a lot of the mechanical benefits of their 1st rank spells are not unlike the Bard's, and if a Bard can maintain +1's from 1 to 20 and be considered a powerhouse class, so can the Battle Herald.

Bard still has better proficiencies, scaling, and spell list, but this is coming across as if a +1 status bonus to attack rolls or AC is bad after 5th level, when the tight math and constant relevance says otherwise.

They are 1 action spells with a much bigger natural area effect and a lot of feats support.

But even so they still feel less impressive at later level unless they are suplmented by haste, herorism, synaesthesia etc spells the bard have a much more of at a higher DC.

siegfriedliner wrote:

Angwa wrote:

Yes, Tumble Through being a masked stride, but somehow better because you do not have to actually tumble through anything is...

But that's what the action has always been from the start. Its always been stride, swim, fly plus.

It's not cheesy to use the action to do what it says it does. Honestly all this negativity about mechanics working they way they work is only going to create a bunch of pointless time consuming rolls where players move through other creatures spaces not for a tactical value but just for the sake of apeasing meaningless convention.

The problem with Tumble Through not requiring you to tumble through anyone is that it makes it more difficult to design new Feats and Abilities that interact with actually tumbling through an opponents space.

Better design would have been Tumble Through requiring an attempt to move through a space, and a different action created for generic moving that was "one of Stride, Fly, Swim etc". It's better design because then the name of the ability would better match the actual action, which is always preferrable.

Oh well. Not where we ended up.

There are quite a few feats and features that interact with the tumble through action already and the vast majority of them just state that their effect happens when you move through an opponenents square or give bonuses to the acrobatics check too move through an enemies square or have some effect based of the degrees of success of that check. Tumble behind is old as the system and we have had new material building off it every year since the game began so there isn't problem with designing new content for it.

From the my interpretation of what I read on the discord post the main reason they chose tumble through is that its a move action but more stylish and also it allows them to give a stride an rule out haste and other free strides procing the benefit. Mechanically its kind of smart that they can by just chosing the right action achieve a fair few mechanical outcomes and it saves words and space which is important for publications like these.

I suppose the dissonance is coming from the fact before now to gain any additonal benefit from the tumble through action you needed a successful acrobatics check and this is a rare exception.

Yes, Tumble Through being a masked stride, but somehow better because you do not have to actually tumble through anything is...

But that's what the action has always been from the start. Its always been stride, swim, fly plus.

It's not cheesy to use the action to do what it says it does. Honestly all this negativity about mechanics working they way they work is only going to create a bunch of pointless time consuming rolls where players move through other creatures spaces not for a tactical value but just for the sake of apeasing meaningless convention.

This might add context

Another user said:

"Honestly it’s really good to know that the tumble in that is intended to be able to be used as just a stride since there’s been a lot of debate about that. Thank you for the clarification!"

To which he responded

"I mean, if you're not backflipping as you go you're literally doing it wrong, but we were very cognizant of how Tumble Through works."

Tumble Through does this

You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy. Attempt an Acrobatics check against the enemy's Reflex DC as soon as you try to enter its space. You can Tumble Through using Climb, Fly, Swim, or another action instead of Stride in the appropriate environment.

I tried my hand at gming recently to mixed results and ultimately gave up after a tpk. My mistake was for 9/10 of my encounters I would feel like I was doing nothing to them so I would escalate and eventually they would just lose. But I struggled to get the encounter I were looking for where they were really challenged and then overcame it. I can't imagine I will try again any time soon.

But during that time I played there was one item that came to really irritate me the humble phantom doorknob spellheart. It's an item that blinds on a critical hit and blind is one of more annoying conditions to monitor.

If I was to gm again I probably would ban it to save me the headache. This lead me to wander what other items, feats and archetype do other gms frequently ban and so I thought I would ask this question here.

Just an update Michael Sayre was on discord and said

"Or, and hear me out here, maybe those are two completely different things.

Quick Spring's problem was that it was functionally two Strides for the cost of one as a single feat.

Animist had tons of playtest feedback pointing out how quick and easy it was to get Leaps to the same functionality as Strides so the 9th-level liturgist ability is intentionally "a move action with style while you Sustain". (And as others have noted, it's not literally all Strides, because it won't work with e.g. quicken effects that let you Stride.)"

So it's raw and Rai were in fact in alignment

Tumble Through is a move action that includes a stride and once you use the action you have the option at any part of you stride to tumble through an enemies space but don't have to.

As Liturgist doesn't have a requirement in that you tumble through successfully (unlike tumble behind and several other features that interac with tumble through) I believe using the action is enough.

You have still used the flurry of blows and its flourish even if you kill the enemy with your first hit and only effectivley strike. The action you take doesn't change just because you didn't use all of its features.

So after paizo nerfed the monk archytype to no longer offer the monks stiker feature at 10th level, I am dubious that they intentionally let you grab the exemplars striker feature/ source of extra damage at level 2 because they haven't done than before and its too powerful for a second level feat.

Which means there is some typo, or failure of joined up thinking going, or maybe their is a limitation that got emitted due to space that really shouldn't have been.

Which unfortuantly means that I can't imagine I will be able the to the use Archetype with any gm any time soon which is a shame I hope the errata comes soon.

So kineticists have a closed actions system where they have specific actions only they use and interact with. Because they are a closed internal system they will inevitably struggle with a lot of team work mechanics.

This was highlighted by the commander playtest where none of the classes action enabling worked for them apart from movement abilities and is playing through again in mythic.

In the playtest for commander indicated that they would include some tactics to include kineticists but there failure to do so for mythic doesn't fill me with faith that they will remember to do so.

Now personally I am not sure why they made it as closed a system as they did given impulse attacks are for the majority of the time worse than strikes allowing strike action support to apply to them would be fine. The same could be said with impulses and support feats for spells. Paizo were too conservative in the kineticists and this meant to they now have do additional work if they want to keep the class relevant with any new meta.

In starfinder 1e the solar weapon was a freely scaling melee weapon that was on the lower range of melee damage which you could supplement with a crystal (that were still cheaper than equivalent weapons) to be roughly on par with the best melee weapons in the game.

So the solar weapon class feature gave you the benefits of free/cheaper melee weapon in 2e solar weapona coat the same to scale as any other weapon.But in practice it's a relatively weak melee weapon compared to other weapons.

It compares poorly to best melee weapon in starfinder 2e, the doshoko (flaming and normal), the pain glaive, the frostpike all do better damage than the solar weapon with better traits. So your class feature isn't giving you assess to a cheaper weapon it's just tying you to inferior weapon.

The class would be stronger if you removed solar weapon and changed any reference to it to melee weapons which isn't ideal. Now I know you could compare if to thief with sneak attack but that feature does add to damage whilst limiting your ability to use the best weapon, solar weapons don't.

What I find funny about the mythic proficiency is that inversely scales with level to a certain extent.

If you are level 2 and use rewrite fate to re-roll a saving throw with mythic proficiency and are only trained in the skill then you get an equivalent of a +8 to that save (& a reroll) if you are levl 15 and legendary in that save you get a +2. Now a +2 and a reroll is still really really good but a +8 plus a reroll is insane so rewrite fate at least is going to have less of a wow factor as you level.

Trip.H wrote:

As a brief aside, I need to ask how many tables allow an Amped Img Wpn spellstrike to hit 2 targets? Because that's *very* much against the rules, and a Magus being able to do that would certainly contribute to their damage output going over the top. No idea how much that "houserule" could be involved in the perception....

Even then, the gap between a d6 & d8 cantrip seems... a bit over-focused on.

Nobody takes IW to hit 2 targets which the rules indeed clearly do not allow, or just because it is a D8 cantrip instead of a D6.

Could it be you missed the real reason people value IW so much?

-> Amp Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d8 instead of 1d8.

Unless your spell swiping or whatever the 8th level feat is which its kind of perfect for.

I have just started to play test a melee focused soldier and am finding it very solid at level 1.

You can do a lot of damage (by starfinder standards) and have a nice reaction.

But looking at options for levelling up I noticed a lot of feats that require an area effect weapon and can't be used whilat wielding a two handed melee weapon and a lot of area attack + actions that clash with whirling Swipe.

I was wondering if whirling Swipe was a stance that gave melee weapons the burst 5 and unweildy trait would that be broken it would certainly add a lot more options for a melee soldier.

So when I think of the solider class in starfinder 2e I get an image in my head of Arnold Swartzenger in cheesy action movie smoking a cigar and making awful quips and mowing down a hoard of faceless minions with a machine gun.

Obviously if I wanted a build for my fantasy this I would go action hero and take the machine guns and spec into intimidate.

When I think of the envoy I think of Johnny silverhand scheduling a gig just outside the corpo office he wants to infiltrate.

For mystic I think jedi though no specific jedi and for witchwarper bizarrely mass effect adepts come to mind.

I don't really have a good idea in my head of what 2e solarian is meant to be and the operative will always be Molly Millions (neuromancer) and Thane (mass effect) in my head.

So what images do the starfinder class invoke in your heads ?

I think a general feat that let you treat one advanced weapon as a martial would be good for both systems.

siegfriedliner wrote:

Against a single target soldiers should do decentish damage (for a ranged combatant) area Fire for them is a compressed action with a mapless strike added on and if your going for the best weapon (the vector cannon) a d10 strike is pretty comparable to archery damage outside of a crit.

If you have a lot of lower level enemies then area Fire is likely to be better than a strike and against one high ac enemy quite often you will get some damage rather than none when they succeed the save. Enemies fail saves without adding the item bonuses in that extra 5-15% chance of failure/critical failure will add up.

By level six soldier can make an area attack a strike and strike at -5 which is pretty good whilst potentially debuffing several enemies.

That seems very solid to me, honestly i think they are likely to put out more damage than most kinetesists (who they seem to share space with the at will area effects) whilst having extremely solid defences and protecting allies.

So, a lot of this relies on the expectation that the Soldier will be able to hit multiple enemies at a time, which in practice is simply not the case. In particular, this does not address the concern of the Soldier's flexibility, so let's ask the important question here: what does a Soldier do when they can only affect one target at a time? And the answer is simple: the exact same thing they do when they can affect multiple targets at a time, which means spending at least two actions making an Area/Auto-Fire and applying Primary Target. This is arguably too strong on an automatic weapon where you can just spend your entire turn dealing damage to a single target (not an intended strength of the Soldier), as Squiggit mentions, but its also just really not flexible for a martial class in general, because you have to dedicate most of your turn to this one thing instead of being able to break up your turn into three bite-sized actions. The fact that you're still pushed to do the exact same thing for...

I am certain you can use primary target on a single target with area Fire as area Fire say you can (specific trumps general)

Given they have included primary target as a/the core feature of the class, mixing it up between area and single target damage is the intended playstyle. They are meant to have some competency in both like a Magus (with might and magic)and primary target is there spell strike action economy enhancer.

Now you may not enjoy this hybrid playstyle but it's clearly intentional.

I have heard a fair amount of complaints about the solider but from my perspective it seems a really robust class.

The solider is playing the role of a defender but it is playing it in a very different way from the champion whilst still being effective. Stacking penalties to hit allies might not be the most exciting way to defend allies but combined with overwatch it will be defective.

Defensively it's strong it has good saves and great ac.

Offensively it seems to be fairly strong as well it's two action combo of area effect strike and strike for 2 actions without map aren't bad especially using a d10 weapon. You can from level 6 have a combo of move shoot area effect weapon and strike twice (0 and -5 map) and that should do decent damage).

Not to mention they can deal with swarms and a large number of weak enemies quite well.

Xenocrat wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

I've been fiddling with character concepts* for the last week or so and have some observations:

1) Starfinder has a "ranged meta" (as mentioned in the Playtest Rulebook). Simply charging across open ground to attack opponents using ranged weapons in melee is a horrible idea; move from cover to cover (usually pretty common in modern/futuristic environments) until the character can get close. The playtest solarian "can create and maintain all three different manifestations" when attuned, so use the Solar Shot action with the solar flare manifestation while moving from cover to cover until getting in melee using the solar weapon.

Solar Shot has a max (not increment) range of 15 or 30 so it’s not very helpful. Use a rifle (free hand solar weapon) or pistol with decent increment.

Fair enough. Looking more closely as Solar Shot, it's the equivalent of a one action cantrip without the concentrate and manipulate traits instead of the SF1 solar flare ranged weapon equivalent. Maybe increasing the range to 20 ft or 40 ft would help.

Teridax wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

In short, the solarian has ways to "survive" (and contribute) until they can do their thing in melee combat.

Surviving is only one part of the problem, and as pointed out by a commenter who otherwise thinks the Soldier's gapclosing abilities are fine, Solar Shot is incredibly limited in its range. It is also worth noting that neither Stellar Rush nor the Solarian's base abilities will help you if your target is, say, flying or atop a tall vantage point.

It's not as if other classes have "base abilities" that help against enemies that are "flying or atop a tall vantage point," either. There are ancestry/class feats, equipment, or spells that can help; just like other characters. I find it slightly dishonest to make the enemy that is "flying or atop a tall vantage point" as the baseline evaluation standard for the "effectiveness" of the...

The Soldier is built around big guns that have some range (though range is a little bit of an issue for them regardless). Operatives movement boosts and have a subclass that supports sniper rifles and movement buffs, stealth.

The mystic and witchwarper have spells some of which have fairly solid ranges and some that allow impressive movement.

Envoys benefit from range weapons and don't lose anything for having ones with decent range.

If you build around primarily using solar weapon and solar bolt you will be the be the worst effected character when facing a dude 40ft in the air on a veranda.