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Speaking of skills, my biggest annoyance there is that Soldier doesn't have Perception as a class skill.
People complained for many years that Fighters not having Perception didn't make any sense, yet that didn't get fixed even with a new system.
You honestly believe Flashing Strikes was the best someone could come up with?Reposting this here, since it seems to be relevant:
One thing I’ve noticed in Starfinder so far is that, in general, they’re much more stingy with bonuses to hit and bonuses against enemies hitting (i.e., to armor class) than they are in Pathfinder. (They may be following 5e here, and doing this to keep the math a bit more under control.)
As a rule of thumb, it seems like most bonuses to hit and/or AC are about half of what they would be in Pathfinder. Judged by that standard, a lot of the class bonuses make more sense.
For example:
—The armor-specialized Solarion ends up with a +2 bonus to AC at level 20. That sounds very weak by Pathfinder standards. But if we double it, it sounds about right (by Pathfinder standards); comparable to a Monk’s AC bonus at level 20.
—The Solarion’s Flashing Strikes ability adds a +1 bonus to hit when full attacking, which sounds very weak by Pathfinder standards. But if we double it, it sounds about right (by Pathfinder standards).
—The Envoy’s Get ‘Em ability adds a +1 morale bonus to attacks against a given enemy, which sounds very weak by Pathfinder standards. But if we double it, it sounds about right (by Pathfinder standards).
Anyway, I think that’s one of the reasons some of the Starfinder class abilities strike those of us coming from Pathfinder as so underwhelming.
And as I replied in the other thread, Flashing Blades is bad by other SF accuracy buff standards. I'm not judging it against PF.
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There's more to a character than their numbers. While I can see the potential issues for those who like to optimise their characters/parties to the max I don't see a lot of these issues affecting the groups who just wanna hang out and play a game (most of the groups I've played with anyway) as the numbers are only a part of the character. Even if the class skills are underwhelming or not good, as long as you can turn up and hit the thing without getting constantly downed and you're enjoying it the numbers aren't a big deal. I know I'll probably still play the 'bad' classes and enjoy it.
They give you other benefits (and indeed, solar armor is better than heavy armor on some more unusual builds for AC while still having the benefits of light armor that Mashallah pointed out above). Different class features are built to do different things, and there's a limit to how many and which are going to be overall damage enhancers compared to the best that other characters can do. Consider, for a moment, the alternative: Suppose that solar weapons gave you more power than a solar armor solarian (or a soldier) could ever hope to achieve. Now from an optimizer's perspective, you are "forced" to go solar weapon solarian or stay out of melee altogether. The only way to avoid this optimization trap would be to just refuse to design solar weapon (and/or any alternative to solar weapon) altogether, but that's less satisfying than including it and keeping in mind that it does what it's meant to do when designing other class features.
I get why you don't want to make solar weapons better than regular weapons (not allowed to be the best at melee, after all), but I disagree that giving them a different, noticably beneficial class feature would be less satisfying than giving them this class feature they won't miss if they don't use.
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There's more to a character than their numbers. While I can see the potential issues for those who like to optimise their characters/parties to the max I don't see a lot of these issues affecting the groups who just wanna hang out and play a game (most of the groups I've played with anyway) as the numbers are only a part of the character. Even if the class skills are underwhelming or not good, as long as you can turn up and hit the thing without getting constantly downed and you're enjoying it the numbers aren't a big deal. I know I'll probably still play the 'bad' classes and enjoy it.
T~T Thank Triune that there is someone who also thinks this way!
I was beginning to feel alone in this regard.
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Don't get me wrong, if optimization is fun for you and your group then that's great! I wouldn't stop you from enjoying the game you're way, I'm just worried that people are gonna see the negativity in this thread and be swayed from trying a great game from a great company! I wouldn't want people who aren't going to care too much about the mechanics to see people saying 'X is bad!' and not playing it even if they really wanted to.
Don't get me wrong, if optimization is fun for you and your group then that's great! I wouldn't stop you from enjoying the game you're way, I'm just worried that people are gonna see the negativity in this thread and be swayed from trying a great game from a great company! I wouldn't want people who aren't going to care too much about the mechanics to see people saying 'X is bad!' and not playing it even if they really wanted to.
I'm commenting on both the good and the bad in the book as I'm seeing it. As I like mechanical fiddly bits, I tend to cover mechanics a lot when doing this. That's all there is to it.
I mean honestly considering everything I've read in this thread I still wouldn't call Starfinder a bad game or system especially considering the room it has to grow from here.
Nothing is going to be perfect and while improvements definitely could be made this is still a good looking game.
Also no one in this thread excluding the dev that was posting has tabled the game yet, at least play it before making final judgments.
Also I'm speaking to everyone generally here.
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Don't get me wrong, if optimization is fun for you and your group then that's great! I wouldn't stop you from enjoying the game you're way, I'm just worried that people are gonna see the negativity in this thread and be swayed from trying a great game from a great company! I wouldn't want people who aren't going to care too much about the mechanics to see people saying 'X is bad!' and not playing it even if they really wanted to.I'm commenting on both the good and the bad in the book as I'm seeing it. As I like mechanical fiddly bits, I tend to cover mechanics a lot when doing this. That's all there is to it.
It's not surprising that they way you've been covering these things leaves people with a much stronger impression of negativity.
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I mean honestly considering everything I've read in this thread I still wouldn't call Starfinder a bad game or system especially considering the room it has to grow from here.
Nothing is going to be perfect and while improvements definitely could be made this is still a good looking game.
Also no one in this thread excluding the dev that was posting has tabled the game yet, at least play it before making final judgments.
I haven't ever called Starfinder a bad game or system. Furthermore, I said several times I like Starfinder as a system more than Pathfinder.
There, however, are parts that I dislike.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not surprising that they way you've been covering these things leaves people with a much stronger impression of negativity.Don't get me wrong, if optimization is fun for you and your group then that's great! I wouldn't stop you from enjoying the game you're way, I'm just worried that people are gonna see the negativity in this thread and be swayed from trying a great game from a great company! I wouldn't want people who aren't going to care too much about the mechanics to see people saying 'X is bad!' and not playing it even if they really wanted to.I'm commenting on both the good and the bad in the book as I'm seeing it. As I like mechanical fiddly bits, I tend to cover mechanics a lot when doing this. That's all there is to it.
That is mostly because the positive bits get mostly forgotten or ignored while the negative bits get discussed a lot.
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That is mostly because the positive bits get mostly forgotten or ignored while the negative bits get discussed a lot.It's not surprising that they way you've been covering these things leaves people with a much stronger impression of negativity.Don't get me wrong, if optimization is fun for you and your group then that's great! I wouldn't stop you from enjoying the game you're way, I'm just worried that people are gonna see the negativity in this thread and be swayed from trying a great game from a great company! I wouldn't want people who aren't going to care too much about the mechanics to see people saying 'X is bad!' and not playing it even if they really wanted to.I'm commenting on both the good and the bad in the book as I'm seeing it. As I like mechanical fiddly bits, I tend to cover mechanics a lot when doing this. That's all there is to it.
A natural and expected aspect of human psychology which you haven't done anything to preempt.
I mean honestly considering everything I've read in this thread I still wouldn't call Starfinder a bad game or system especially considering the room it has to grow from here.
Nothing is going to be perfect and while improvements definitely could be made this is still a good looking game.
Also no one in this thread excluding the dev that was posting has tabled the game yet, at least play it before making final judgments.
I haven't ever called Starfinder a bad game or system. Furthermore, I said several times I like Starfinder as a system more than Pathfinder.
There, however, are parts that I dislike.
Really! I hadn't noticed.
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Could you elaborate on "Mechanically ineffective and extremely bland"?Trying to mathematically determine whether certain options are worth it for offense or defense is going to be really hard until the Alien Archive comes out and we have hard numbers for opposition to gauge things against. Actually gauging whether a character is worth their salt in combat or even what combat numbers mean in the setting is pretty close to impossible. A lot of the text in the book might as well be gibberish until then.
That doesn't mean we're short on problems to point out before then, unfortunately. Like carrying capacity scaling linearly (so that your endgame power armor suit can only lift about 290 pounds), most of the class options being both mechanically ineffective and extremely bland, stealth still being broken in the same ways it is in D&D, and and traps still being totally undetectable if you don't specifically stop and spend actions to find them.
Sure. Most class options fall into one of two categories:
1) Bad value proposition: Having a chance to stagger your enemy for 1 round as a standard action. Spending a standard action for a chance to give an enemy a -2 penalty to hit for 1 round. Disable your drone as a full round action to gain a single one of its 2 to 11 mods. Spending a standard action to restore 2(3 at level 15)*Level+Cha Stamina. There are a lot of options that are commonly known as traps: they do something enticing like hurt an enemy's actions or stats, or buff you, but the cost of using them (not including the cost of just taking the things) renders them a harmful waste to activate outside of extreme edge cases (and often times even then). They're called traps since they- intentionally or not- trick you into hurting yourself.2) Minor or inconsequential change: A lot of options are just a minor change to a thing your character could already do. Disguise only minor details about only yourself as a move action (with an effective -8.5 to -13.5 penalty depending on what your Expertise die would have given you). Summon easily detected (Stealth +0) scout bots with 10 minutes and some resolve instead of a trivial credit cost. You don't take a penalty to Perception checks while asleep (which as far as I can tell doesn't seem to exist anyway, at least not in Notice). +1 to AC. Some of these abilities are defensible but none of them are exciting.
There are other options that are the more traditional filler that's just obviously bad (conditional Resist 5 to a single energy type), but that goes without saying. There are shockingly few talents that give you something new and awesome you can do, and far too many that shuffle around fiddly little +1s and +2s of different (but usually insight) types, especially to skills. That's the biggest sin of the classes right now- most of your options are just boring and forgettable, even most of the ones that are good. Ironically it seems like the Space Fighter Soldier and Space Rogue Operative have the most interesting abilities attached to them that aren't spells, including abilities that let you do stuff like move while full attacking, get stacking bonuses to damage while surrounded, create free grenades for every fight, shrug off mental attacks and pretend you were affected, the cloaking field from the Operative preview, and throwing out holo-clones as distractions.
Don't get me wrong, if optimization is fun for you and your group then that's great! I wouldn't stop you from enjoying the game you're way, I'm just worried that people are gonna see the negativity in this thread and be swayed from trying a great game from a great company! I wouldn't want people who aren't going to care too much about the mechanics to see people saying 'X is bad!' and not playing it even if they really wanted to.
On the other hand though, first impressions do include the mechanics behind a game and areas that could do with early errata (Like how the Operative has two sources of Insight Bonus to the same skills and thus has class features that don't actually work together)
I don't think anyone is disparaging others enjoying the game so much as commenting on areas they personally feel could have gotten them more enjoyment if they'd been handled differently/better.
Like my personal bugbear about skills.
I have lots of things I like, and lots of things I'm disappointed about, but the thing that sticks out most that I haven't seen anyone else mention much is this:
This game expects you to track each and every bullet and fraction of a battery you go through during your career, and do accounting for recharging and purchasing them. That is insane, partially because it's extremely annoying and wastes a lot of time from a gameplay stand point and partially because most sci-fi settings (i.e. Mass Effect) treat those details as utterly irrelevant with really easy justification, which tells me that Starfinder's developers enjoy and expect everyone else to enjoy tracking every last round in every last magazine.
Most groups I've played Pathfinder with hate needing to track arrows, and their costs were insignificant- now the costs are pretty hugely relevant for most of the game, and you can't easily ignore them.
I have lots of things I like, and lots of things I'm disappointed about, but the thing that sticks out most that I haven't seen anyone else mention much is this:
This game expects you to track each and every bullet and fraction of a battery you go through during your career, and do accounting for recharging and purchasing them. That is insane, partially because it's extremely annoying and wastes a lot of time from a gameplay stand point and partially because most sci-fi settings (i.e. Mass Effect) treat those details as utterly irrelevant with really easy justification, which tells me that Starfinder's developers enjoy and expect everyone else to enjoy tracking every last round in every last magazine.
Most groups I've played Pathfinder with hate needing to track arrows, and their costs were insignificant- now the costs are pretty hugely relevant for most of the game, and you can't easily ignore them.
I'll have to admit I'm so used to ignoring ammunition in pathfinder and hate tracking it so much that I didn't even look at that portion of the rules.
I mean honestly considering everything I've read in this thread I still wouldn't call Starfinder a bad game or system especially considering the room it has to grow from here.
Nothing is going to be perfect and while improvements definitely could be made this is still a good looking game.
Also no one in this thread excluding the dev that was posting has tabled the game yet, at least play it before making final judgments.
I haven't ever called Starfinder a bad game or system. Furthermore, I said several times I like Starfinder as a system more than Pathfinder.
There, however, are parts that I dislike.
I didn't say that you did.
I was making a statement for the record.
Nothing I have said today has been aimed at you.
I apologize If I have given you that impression.
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I have lots of things I like, and lots of things I'm disappointed about, but the thing that sticks out most that I haven't seen anyone else mention much is this:
This game expects you to track each and every bullet and fraction of a battery you go through during your career, and do accounting for recharging and purchasing them. That is insane, partially because it's extremely annoying and wastes a lot of time from a gameplay stand point and partially because most sci-fi settings (i.e. Mass Effect) treat those details as utterly irrelevant with really easy justification, which tells me that Starfinder's developers enjoy and expect everyone else to enjoy tracking every last round in every last magazine.
Most groups I've played Pathfinder with hate needing to track arrows, and their costs were insignificant- now the costs are pretty hugely relevant for most of the game, and you can't easily ignore them.
I've never disliked tracking ammo. I *do* dislike tracking treasure. No one wants a pile of 3-50gp gem stones and paintings. :/
I think shortages of supplies are very much a scifi trope. Food is usually the big one, probably ship parts coming up second, but tracking ammo feels similar to me.
I have lots of things I like, and lots of things I'm disappointed about, but the thing that sticks out most that I haven't seen anyone else mention much is this:
This game expects you to track each and every bullet and fraction of a battery you go through during your career, and do accounting for recharging and purchasing them. That is insane, partially because it's extremely annoying and wastes a lot of time from a gameplay stand point and partially because most sci-fi settings (i.e. Mass Effect) treat those details as utterly irrelevant with really easy justification, which tells me that Starfinder's developers enjoy and expect everyone else to enjoy tracking every last round in every last magazine.
Most groups I've played Pathfinder with hate needing to track arrows, and their costs were insignificant- now the costs are pretty hugely relevant for most of the game, and you can't easily ignore them.
I've never disliked tracking ammo. I *do* dislike tracking treasure. No one wants a pile of 3-50gp gem stones and paintings. :/
I think shortages of supplies are very much a scifi trope. Food is usually the big one, probably ship parts coming up second, but tracking ammo feels similar to me.
The will be no shortage of food. Clear spindle ioun stones, the ones which remove the need for food and water, are dirt cheap now and a level 1 character can afford buying four of them at game start.
I have lots of things I like, and lots of things I'm disappointed about, but the thing that sticks out most that I haven't seen anyone else mention much is this:
This game expects you to track each and every bullet and fraction of a battery you go through during your career, and do accounting for recharging and purchasing them. That is insane, partially because it's extremely annoying and wastes a lot of time from a gameplay stand point and partially because most sci-fi settings (i.e. Mass Effect) treat those details as utterly irrelevant with really easy justification, which tells me that Starfinder's developers enjoy and expect everyone else to enjoy tracking every last round in every last magazine.
Most groups I've played Pathfinder with hate needing to track arrows, and their costs were insignificant- now the costs are pretty hugely relevant for most of the game, and you can't easily ignore them.
I've never disliked tracking ammo. I *do* dislike tracking treasure. No one wants a pile of 3-50gp gem stones and paintings. :/
I think shortages of supplies are very much a scifi trope. Food is usually the big one, probably ship parts coming up second, but tracking ammo feels similar to me.
I'm 50-50 on it. I think for games where it's a theme, it'll be a big important detail. Something where you're responding to a distress signal from a colony/outpost, only to find yourself stranded there, no colonists left alive, there's more Swarm than you have shots left, it's getting dark, and they mostly come out at night....... yeah, track that ammo.
For most games, though, I can see it being more annoying than immersive.
The will be no shortage of food. Clear spindle ioun stones, the ones which remove the need for food and water, are dirt cheap now and a level 1 character can afford buying four of them at game start.
This makes me sad. I'm a big fan of the Farscape/Firefly feel of underdogs, struggling to get by on the rim. I worry that removing the need for basic resources like that might undermine that.
I've never disliked tracking ammo. I *do* dislike tracking treasure. No one wants a pile of 3-50gp gem stones and paintings. :/I think shortages of supplies are very much a scifi trope. Food is usually the big one, probably ship parts coming up second, but tracking ammo feels similar to me.
I'm 50-50 on it. I think for games where it's a theme, it'll be a big important detail. Something where you're responding to a distress signal from a colony/outpost, only to find yourself stranded there, no colonists left alive, there's more Swarm than you have shots left, it's getting dark, and they mostly come out at night....... yeah, track that ammo.
For most games, though, I can see it being more annoying than immersive.
That's fair. While I tend to prefer that style of play, both could be fun.
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Positive section! Felt like some strong points of the Envoy class were being overlooked.
Envoy had a few things I liked that they can pick up with their skill unlocks.
- The ability to use a computer to produce a forged document in one round- enough time that you could bluff "pulling it up" and basically go one step short of psychic paper.
- The ability to retroactively gather information as a swift action anywhere that they've been for twenty-four hours. No cost to use, no limit on uses.
- The ability to trade out a disguise bonus to negate the first one (and eventually two) time(s) the disguise is pierced. Worth noting though that disguise no longer allows you to imitate specific people- I think that's a high-level Operative gimmick with a very short duration.
My overall impression was that Envoy is going to do better in a really heavy social/intrigue game than an Operative. The skill unlocks have a few genuinely impressive options. If combat comes up, they either have a large enough group that their buffing/debuffing is worth it even if they don't do much direct damage, or they should invest two feats in grabbing longarms. Operatives lose pretty much all their cool class features with bigger guns. Things are set up such that having both in the group results in really good synergy.
Up to level 9 or so, life is good! Take level seven for instance. You spend your turn giving yourself a guaranteed +4 to attack against a target, buffing your allies against the target for at least +2, then fire off a shot with your feat-purchased longarm or sniper rifle (you're not planning on making iterative attacks anyway). Outside of combat, you have two unique tricks- if you're me, it's being able to solve mysteries in an armchair by mentally sifting through everything you heard during your first day in the area, and being able to produce whatever credentials you need just this side of instantly.
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Negative section!
Here's the criticism where I do agree with Marsallah. Envoy would greatly benefit from higher-level options, I think. (When you only consider Operative's exploits of level 8 and under, the comparison is a lot more solid.) By the time you hit level 8 with Envoy, you've picked your best options; everything you wanted most. Once your move, standard, and reaction are accounted for, new options you take are situational backups, things you could have taken but passed over. Expertise talents are level-unrestricted, so new ones are less exciting, and the increase in your expertise die is nice… but most of your cool tricks involve not using it, so the fun stuff is just getting more "expensive" to use.
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Back to positive!
Fortunately, this isn't just an easy fix, it's one we can be pretty sure we'll get. The Starfinder equivalent of the APG will likely contain more options, and envoy will get higher-level improvisations when they aren't as crunched for space.
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I've been silent in this thread until now, but I want to say that I am a huge fan of the Envoy. It's a really cool class with lots of options.
One of the issues that we're all dealing with is that Starfinder has changed how the numbers of combat works in a number of very subtle ways. If the Envoy were transported to Pathfinder, it would be underwhelming because Pathfinder is a math game where players stack as many sorts of buffs as they can in an ever increasing game of rocket tag with the monsters.
In its own milieu, the Envoy has a ton to offer -- both in and out of combat. Remember always that the Envoy is not a solo player. It's part of a team.
Starfinder has deliberately removed most of the buffs from the game and simplified the math in a thousand different ways. I would like to urge all of you who are now feeling buyers remorse to actually play the game. The system is elegant. The adventures that I have seen are delightful.
This is going to rock.
Yours with Jet Boots On,
Hmm
I've been silent in this thread until now, but I want to say that I am a huge fan of the Envoy. It's a really cool class with lots of options.
One of the issues that we're all dealing with is that Starfinder has changed how the numbers of combat works in a number of very subtle ways. If the Envoy were transported to Pathfinder, it would be underwhelming because Pathfinder is a math game where players stack as many sorts of buffs as they can in an ever increasing game of rocket tag with the monsters.
In its own milieu, the Envoy has a ton to offer -- both in and out of combat. Remember always that the Envoy is not a solo player. It's part of a team.
Starfinder has deliberately removed most of the buffs from the game and simplified the math in a thousand different ways. I would like to urge all of you who are now feeling buyers remorse to actually play the game. The system is elegant. The adventures that I have seen are delightful.
This is going to rock.
Yours with Jet Boots On,
Hmm
I agree whole heartedly with this sentiment, I watched the twitch game and everything seemed like it was working quite well.
We should attempt as a whole to reserve any judgments until we start playing adventures and take the whole of the game in as the sum of it's parts in it's native environment.
I am happy with the game.
To me the envoy provides decent boost to other classes and that to me is what it is what it does.
The Solarian is also fine. It requires more planning, but works fine. It reminds me to a degree of the Psi-Warrior from 3.5. There are some advantages not being dependent on weapon that can be taken away. The Solarian is the weapon. As far as the crystals go an awarding them. It is a bad DM that punishes a player for their choices in class. I would award the crystals like other loot.
As far as the soldier goes. With Armor Storm why not attach weapon to the armor. I would not be dependent on unarmed or fist attacks.
As far as the sharpshooter goes. Where are you seeing sniper weapons cannot be used? I have looked at the style and the sniper weapon paragraph.
The gear boost are better than just ok to me. They are actually pretty solid. Also with a good will save that goes along way in making them solid choice at any level. The weapon scaling also makes big difference.
Kill Shot at 20 is also quite interesting.
As far as boost out side combat? I have never understood that point of view are argument. Soldier is the best at using weapons and armor. They tend to be combat focused class. The skill and themes can help some with that. So if you are limiting the soldier outside combat seems like player and DM thing to me.
The Sniper weapons are based on range. Shooting some one from 1000 feet away for 10d10 seem pretty nice to me. 2 attacks is 20d10 and the target will probably take around or so to find you. More damage. Seems pretty good to me.
Dave2
It's part of a team.
This is what I was thinking in respect to the classes as a whole. So I would guess that a party with a soldier and a solarion would be less likely to be caught with their pants down than one with two soldiers. Same with a mechanic and an operative vs two operatives or an envoy and an operative vs two operatives.
Synergy might offset some precieved shortcomings.
If not then I doubt the difference would be that terrible to the overall groups effectiveness. A team can hide a lot of individual weaknesses.
That's not to say that there aren't concerns about some of the classes.
For my group of friends Pathfinder has always just been something to do while we drink so I don't care much about the mechanics. As long as stuff sounds cool, we're good!
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hey does tthe solorain melee weapon ignore dr?I knew envoy was easy to underestimate before we even played so adjusted my expectations, and to top it off our playtest envoy chose a set of powers that I thought weren't as good as another similar set I would have picked, and despite both those things, I completely underestimated the envoy's strength until we actually added one late in the playtest and she made the team so much more powerful. If anyone here has played Fire Emblem, it's easy to underestimate the Dancer/Crane (depending on which Fire Emblem) when you first play in a similar way "I'd have been better with another unit that could just do its own turn), but it's actually the most powerful unit because it gives you more of what you need.I'm struggling to see how is that the case.
Pathfinder Bard is obviously strong and has way stronger buffing features than Envoy. 4e Warlord is blatantly extremely powerful and needs no excuses. Many buffing classes in many tabletop games are strong and useful at first glance.
However, simply comparing the offensive buffs that Envoy and Operative can provide, Envoy has only +2 to hit over Operative.
I can't imagine +2 to hit being worth all the other stuff Operative has - it's just 10% after all, especially in a game with a lesser overall number of attacks compared to Pathfinder.The dancer/heron comparison is to the Hurry chain specifically, which came up earlier in the thread. Giving the exact right person extra actions is extremely and subtly powerful. I highly underestimated the value of the extra move actions and was taught the error of my ways.
As to the accuracy boosts, there's a few things, but the math is long. ** spoiler omitted **...
As mentioned earlier in the thread, there's a way to turn the damage into 100% fire damage if you want in order to ignore DR. Of course, a solarian would probably choose not to do that when facing a Dragonslayer like you who eats fire.
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I've never disliked tracking ammo. I *do* dislike tracking treasure. No one wants a pile of 3-50gp gem stones and paintings. :/
Yeah, you end up with bags full of crap and most of it is only going to sell for half it's value.
There are days I would be fine with going so far as to just give everybody their WBL in gear, and allow them to re-allocate at when they go to town. (As in, everything they are wearing just dissolves into sparkly mist, and reforms into the new gear they want, because I hate, hate, hate shopping, whether it be buying or selling.)
No more prybarring up stuff that might sell, or haggling with the potato farmers for a bigger reward for dealign with the ankheg infestation, or dumping out all the copper in your handy haversack to make room for only silver or higher denominations, or using shrink item to take the bajillion gold piece jade statue / altar that the writer of the adventure never in a million years thought the party would be able to take and sell (and wreck the balance of the rest of the adventure). No more being 'behind WBL' and getting stomped in encounters balanced for a better equipped party with magic weapons (against, for instance, creatures more or less immune to non-magic weapons) because you missed a secret door that you were 'supposed' to find that included the magic weapon or potions of fire resist or scroll of neutralize poison you were going to desperately need in the next room.
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Never what you want to hear, though with hundreds of pages, kind of hard to avoid.These mistakes have been found by a small handful of people reading the book in about a day. Sounds like they'd have been pretty easy to avoid to me.
So sayeth those that have never made a living writing a book.
Yeah, you end up with bags full of crap and most of it is only going to sell for half it's value.
Amusingly in SF you sell loot for 10% of full value.
Also funny, your attack bonus for thrown weapons key off strength, then for some reason the save DC for grenades key off Dex.
I also found another error, p245 and other places indicate thrown weapons attack bonus uses strength to hit, but p181 sidebar says that Dex is used for thrown weapons.
I noticed that too. I'm guessing the change of thrown weapons from Strength to Dex happened late in development, and some vestiges of the old rules slipped through the cracks.
Did anyone ever make a potential errata/FAQ thread?
As far as boost out side combat? I have never understood that point of view are argument. Soldier is the best at using weapons and armor. They tend to be combat focused class. The skill and themes can help some with that. So if you are limiting the soldier outside combat seems like player and DM thing to me.
Because 'Good at combat' and 'Good at non-combat' have no balance effect on each other, so a class improving in one does not mean that it can't be good at the other.
Games are also not entirely combat or non-combat, so classes being able to engage in more aspects of the game is very much a good thing. It's something a lot of games (4e with focusing more heavily on skills and removing spells to replace them/5e with it's Pillars approach) have recognised. Being more powerful in one aspect of the game at the cost of not contributing in another doesn't help balance, if anything it just promotes players tuning out as it's not the time they can do stuff.
That and the main non-combat class (The Operative) is currently better than other classes in their own non-combat expertise (Like faster scaling than the Mechanic doing tech stuff).
...I must confess confusion about what you mean by that last sentence though. It's not really a player/GM thing if 'This class has less it can do' is just a fundamental part of it's rules.
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this has turned into people just attacking each other for what they feel is better/worse. All i wanted was to read some cool stuff and see what people think about different build and all, but instead i get pages of junk... this is why i mainly stay off threads and away from geeks/nerds they just cant get along cause they believe they are right and no one else. stop acting like jerks and just post cool stuff you killing the buzz for people.
Well, with all due respect? First Impressions are not supposed to be purely positive stuff. First impressions can very much be negative and it's important for the devs to understand why people may be negative.
Mind you, that's no excuse for being a jerk to others but most of the discourse here has been mostly polite.
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Soldier has one big social "feature" that will continue to improve marginally for the life of the game. Of the core classes, it's the only one to get its worst features on even levels. You only trade out your easily-replaced combat feats for archetypes, rather than your unique class features. If Soldier is too combat-heavy for you, trade some of that out for Forerunner (get some minor tracking, knowledge, survival, and repair talents). Or, you can go whole-hog and grab Phrenic Adept (starting you off with some unimpressive mental tricks, but scaling up to solid-power, limited-use Dex- or Str-based casting).
Sure, other classes can take those, but soldier trades by far the least for it.
It is(DM thing) when you are saying there has to be some kind of skill to interact with NPCs and do things like be soldier for a small town gain bonds with other soldiers who you are part of the town militia. So what a game is outside of combat squarely lands in the lap of the DM. Even if you are going to micro/DM you can always pick up leadership or similar skill to do this. There is nothing preventing the soldier from doing this. So when you say the Soldier has no out combat use we will agree to disagree. Themes can also help with this some along with archetypes as pointed out above.
Using the example of non combat expertise what does solarian, mystic, and technomancer do outside of casting spells, and using abilities outside of combat.
Dave2
Also for the sniper rifle indeed would be 1000ft away. The range is the point of the weapon.
It is when you are saying there has to be some kind of skill to interact with NPCs and do things like be soldier for a small town gain bonds with other soldiers who you are part of the town militia. So what a game is outside of combat squarely lands in the lap of the DM. Even if you are going to micro/DM you can always pick up leadership or similar skill to do this. There is nothing preventing the soldier from doing this. So when you say the Soldier has no out combat use we will agree to disagree.
Should I clarify it then to 'It has no inherent out of combat capabilities'? As none of that has any bearing on the class itself. I mean, you could invert that and say that the Operative is useless outside of combat because a GM can let them do nothing. Using 'The GM can allow/disallow' personally feels like a poor argument when discussing the class in and of itself.
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There seem to be a large number of arguments based in comparing SF to other systems instead of just understanding it within itself.
Quite obviously SF fairly lower powered game system. For me, that is at least half of the draw to it.
I am curious however about the large amount of inharent bonuses, as has been pointed out before. For Example: the Mechanic, I believe, gets a class inherent bonus to comp and eng that scales. Skill Focus is a +3 inharent bonus. And the other one that gives +2 inherent to two skills.
Is it intentional that they all do not stack? I'm fine with it if it is. Such a thing lowers the skill modifiers a bit.