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Same thing but level 3, pre a bunch of errata
It's 20th level. Those of you who have played this level range for any length of time know it's not exactly well balanced gameplay, it's broken content fighting against broken content, and if you're not doing something broken you lose to the thing that is.
Which is part of why I test this (the other reason is that no one else does) - the question is: Does your class get anything substantially broken to compete with broken monsters at this level, or are they just a numerical improvement and feel like they've relatively fallen behind since 16th? Do they have any class-specific broken content, or are they just abusing the general broken content (Invisiblity+Hidden Mind, Legendary Sneak, 3rd-rank Heroism wand stack, etc.)
Important to note that, due to the size and speed of many creatures at this level, alongside the fact that nearly all of them have flight, maps fundamentally do not matter. As such, we just used mechageddon maps, which tend to be large open fields.
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System mechanics and general stuff
Not going to talk about anything broken in PF2e at this level range, I don't expect SF2e to fix this, so there's only a couple of points
1) Borai. This didn't really show up before because we only had 1 Borai, but for 20A, just to have a chance against one specific encounter, party A is all Borais. Borai... don't really work correctly right now, as an undead without void healing, they cause game mechanics to become dysfunctional in a couple of ways.
A) Anything that refers to a living creatures. Spells like desiccate can only target living creatures. Treerazer's Aura of Corruption. The Grim Reaper's Aura of Misfortune. Wails of the Damned. All of these, and more, completely blank on Borai. Granted, undead from Book of the Dead have the same problem, so its not as much of a concern as...
B) Things that specifically have different effects for Undead and Living Creatures. Spells like Execute do Vitality damage to undead and Void damage to living creatures. The authors seemed to assume that all undead would have void healing, so a Borai, being undead, takes the vitality damage - which they are immune to, because they don't have void healing. Same with monster mechanics like the Yamaraj's Shepherd's Touch.
2) The New Game spell. Specifically the PvP mode, it's really unclear how exactly it works. I simply assumed it worked like the Fated Confrontation spell in PF2e, but there's far less text actually explaining it than in Fated Confrontation. What's the terrain? Where do both participants spawn? Can anyone else affect creatures inside the game?
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Envoy
At this level we have finally gotten Get Them! and True Leader, improving action economy significantly and making Get 'Em! finally feel like it works against swarms. Unfortunately, the Envoy still really doesn't have anything else to actually use this action economy on - Demoralize, Strike, Scare to Death. That's pretty much it.
While it has improved since 16th, it hasn't improved relative to the most threatening monsters that are faced at 20th, so I feel like it's relatively gotten weaker.
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Mystic
Due to some specific playtest stuff, and wanting to test things out, I had a skill challenge that awarded off list spells from the SF2e playtest book just to see if they would be cast, which the Mystic used to pick up New Game. They did cast it twice, and it did help a bit. Other than that, they have picked up Enlightenment which makes their healing even more effective.
However, monsters that interact solely on doing single-target damage are the least threatening enemies by far at this level. While the mystic can heal any one person to full HP over and over again, this really isn't as useful as it may seem against the most threatening of enemies.
They don't really have anything broken outside of that, so while I'd say they're slightly stronger relatively than they were at 16th, it's a miniscule increase.
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Operative
We have divergence in feat choice yet again.
Striker Operative goes for Tactical Assault and Infinite Aim. Tactical Barrage didn't really feel that much better than Line 'Em Up, and Infinite Aim, outside of synergy with Tactical Assault, felt extremely redundant with how much aim compression operative has.
Ghost Operative goes for Combat Reflexes. Combined with Dual Aim, this means 3 hair triggers per round, substantially increasing their damage output.
Both of them get Tactical Barrage from class features, which is a significant increase in damage as expected, and really not necessary.
With Combat Reflexes, it's definitely relatively stronger than it was at 16th, with Infinite Aim, it's the same or slightly weaker.
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Solarian
This is the class that needs Quickened for Strike most, and unlike everyone else who gets it from Quicklock at 16th-17th, Solarian needs to take Cosmic Alignment to get it.
They really struggled with the increased speed and map size, the bonuses they've gotten since 16th (Legendary Solar Weapon, Cosmic Alignment) while they feel like they should be significant, they really... aren't? The class overall felt much weaker relatively at 20th.
Really struggled to use either Big Bang or Supernova at this level. Kinda just felt like a worse fighter.
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Soldier
Seeing on level enemies critically fail their reflex saves on an 8 doesn't get old.
With Spread the Love and Hybrid Technique, alongside Legendary DC, their damage has actually scaled quite well.
It certainly helped that both soldiers were on the party with the Witchwarper, who used Complete Transposition to put all the enemies into a blob for Area Fire, but even without that I think they're about the same power relatively as they were at 16th.
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Witchwarper
Warped Infinities making your quantum field a 100ft burst suddenly is a massive bonus, however if we were just stuck using Twisted Dark Zone as our only relevant Zone option, it wouldn't mean too much.
This class instantly became broken due to Complete Transposition. With Warped Infinities, this feat is utterly bananas. Teleport everyone in your 100ft burst Quantum Field to anywhere in a 100ft burst within 100ft of you. One action, not once per round. Sure, enemies get a will save to resist, but who cares? Against single or double enemies, moving your entire party up to 200+ feet for 1 action is stellar action economy. Against a horde of lower level enemies, you can bunch them all up then nuke them with AoE attacks.
While this is incredibly overpowered, it also feels like something the Witchwarper should be able to do. 100ft burst and anywhere within 100ft of you is obviously way too much, but back when the quantum field was a 15ft burst, if you could teleport anyone who stayed in your quantum field a little bit - say, 30 feet or so, remember this is a ranged game so the forced movement distances have to be a bit bigger to compensate for the fact that no one naturally groups - it would be pretty fun.
I took Quantum Negation for my 20th feat. As a focus spell, its cute, but its not that great. Vastly overshadowed by Complete Transposition.
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Encounters
1) 8x Vilderavn and 8x Shemhazian (160XP)
- Was originally going to be 8 Giyleas instead of 8 Vilderavns, but the Giyleas have detonate magic. While this spell is less of a problem in Starfinder than it is in Pathfinder (where you can get your +3 major striking weapon or +3 greater/major resilient armor detonated then be useless for a week) as weapons/armor are nonmagical, things like Apex augmentations (if you chose magitech), any magitech augmentations, etc. can still be detonated for a week long debuff. In the interest of playtesting things instead of having them be disabled on the first encounter, we replaced those.
- Neither party really struggles with fighting these.
- Party A heals off any damage taken with Transfer Vitality and Infusion, divine decree banishes a few of them
- Party B groups up most of the enemies with Complete Transposition, denies turns with Twisted Dark Zone, Ghost Operative Line 'Em Up or Terrified Retreat, and then shreds through their health bars with Line 'Em Up and two soldiers Area Firing (this will become a common theme). Enemies barely even get to take actual turns. These 16 enemies got a total of 2 turns where they weren't stunned, fleeing, confused or out of range to do anything.
2) 4x Guthallath and 1x Elite Guthallath (160XP)
- This monster has been nerfed since the original printing, I have run the original where, as a 60XP encounter for a level 18 party, it caused 3/4 characters to die instantly on its first turn. Admittedly, 2 natural 1 saves against the 10th-level disintegrate beams were rolled, but it's still pretty silly.
- Party A needs 4 tries. 13d10 AoE death effect, combined with their extreme attack/high damage (effectively extreme damage when you factor in their 3d12 deadly) leads to the Solarian dying, a lot. Operative, envoy and mystic all have legendary stealth so they can just be undetected, Solarian does not. Even then, they only win on the 4th try due to bad Guthallath attack roll RNG, and the mystic using New Game, a spell that isn't on their list.
- Party B does it in 1 try. Guthallaths get grouped up, confused and/or stunned and shredded by AoE. The Guthallaths take a grand total of 0 turns where they weren't confused, fleeing and/or stunned.
3) 2x Elite Nessari and 1x Nessari (160XP)
- Party A needs 2 tries, mystic gets repeatedly hit + poisoned due to their bad initiative roll before they can take a turn. When they can take a turn, they have 18 HP and are stuck between 3 Nessaris who have Reactive Strikes that trigger on concentrates. As the only party member who can do the Holy damage (or death effect) necessary to kill these things, it's a loss. Second time, better initiative and bad nessari attack rolls means win.
- Party B does it in 1 try. A bit close, the Nessaris can't be kited with Complete Transposition as they can always Masterful Quickened Casting Fireball->Fireball to be effective at 500 feet away. Operative doesn't get their crits to stun early enough. Repair Module on the Witchwarper keeps them alive. Despite the bad initiative, the party still turns this into a win after 7 rounds.
4) 2x Elite Grim Reaper (160XP)
- If you read this encounter and went "oh god why?" know that this is the only 22nd-level monster using remastered content that's even remotely threatening. The rest can easily be rendered mostly ineffective by a fly speed.
- Party A takes 4 tries and loses all 4 of them. Even with a full stack of Borai meaning that Aura of Misfortune doesn't work. Even with two save rerolls from Persistent Confidence and Stubborn As.... It's a grossly overpowered enemy. Their first try was the one with the most promise, they got absurdly lucky getting twenty 11+ rolls to only five rolls of 10 or less, whereas the reapers got four 11+s, eight 10 or less and missed two important Lurking Death attacks (which hit on a 3). Still, in that run, the Envoy died to Death Strike after the party managed to put down 1 reaper. In following runs, the party did not get as lucky, and someone died to Death Strike before even a single reaper died.
- Party B does it in 1 try. The luck was... average, I'd say. The reapers still only got four 11+s and seven 10 or lesses, and the Witchwarper passed 2 saves against Death Strikes with rerolls (only ~57% chance to pass the save with a reroll), but the operative also didn't get any crits past round 1, when their crit chance with Clustered Shots, 9th-rank Heroism and master proficiency aid was 64%. Takes 4 rounds, and involves some kiting (or the threat of kiting) with Complete Transposition denying turns and Lurking Deaths, but they get there.
5) 8x Ancient Mirage Dragon (160XP)
- Do you notice how literally every SF class has resolve? Yep, combined with hidden mind's +4 status bonus to mental saves, this makes the breath weapons a non factor. All they can do is try to kite with their 180 foot fly speed, and do a flanking dance to get sneak attack.
- Party A just heals off any damage they can do to the mystic, then kills them one by one.
- Party B... you guessed it, groups them up with Complete Transposition, denies turns with Twisted Dark Zone, Ghost Operative Line 'Em Up and Terrified Retreat, then shreds down HP with Line 'Em Up and Area Fires. The dragons get 3 total turns where they're able to do something.
6) 11x Makosa (165XP)
- Everyone still has resolve and hidden mind. That renders their Phantasmal Calamities useless, and... they don't have much after that.
- Party A just grinds through them one by one while the Makosas can't do much damage.
- Party B groups up, denies turns and shreds with AoE (made better by the Makosas' fire weakness 20). The Makosas get 0 real turns.
7) 2x Yamaraj and 2x Ancient Diabolic Dragon (160XP)
- An encounter I thought would be more threatening than it really was.
- Party A gets through it in one try. Maybe they got kind of lucky. Envoy, Solarian and Operative are able to burst down one Yamaraj before it gets a turn, then mystic locks the second one in combat with the Solarian using New Game preventing it from reviving the first.
- Everyone except the mystic has evasion, and the dragons don't have an answer to advanced cloaking skin so it's easy cleanup from there.
- Party B also gets through it in one try. Again, enemies are grouped up by Complete Transposition, witchwarper uses true target to give operative a staggering 84% crit chance on Line 'Em Up with Master Aid, Off-Guard and Frightened 2 from critical demoralize (opening roar). They stun the entire encounter and it's just easy cleanup of Area Fires and Line 'Em Ups from there (featuring a second stun on the entire encounter with a second Line 'Em Up). The only one that gets a turn is the Yamaraj who beat the party in initiative.
8) 1x Treerazer (200XP)
- Anyone who has fought this guy before knows that he's a complete pushover at 20th. He can't really do all that much except Strike for some damage, and his damage isn't good enough to meaningfully threaten characters at this level even if he lands 2 crits in a row. The Stunned 2 on crit is cute, but it's not nearly enough cheese factor.
- Party A just grinds through him the normal way, healing off any damage he can do. Being a full stack of Borais, they're immune to his Aura of Corruption, and his desiccate, leaving Strike as his only real option. Not that the extra 2d12 damage would have helped him much.
- Party B kites him around the map with Complete Transposition. Complete Transposition moves the party about 200 feet, and Treerazer's fly speed is only 60 feet (40 feet if suppressed by Anchoring Impacts). He can't punish Concentrate actions with his Reactive Strike so... once he's used up his single copy of desiccate and freeze time, he can't actually damage the party at all. They kill him with Manifestation -> Holy Light.
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Forgot to mention: For the purpose of this playtest, any enemy with Manifestation (The Yamarajs and Nessaris) were banned from casting Singularity Seed with it. The reason is if they spawned it right next to the spellcaster PC, the only one that can dispel it, then on any save result other than a critical success that PC was likely dead. It’s simply infeasible for them to escape unless, for some reason, they had legendary athletics due to their +0 strength, making them take well over 100d10s of damage without the ability to take any other action.