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The Enhanced Resistance feat provides resistance vs. either kinetic damage or one of a few energy types. If you choose kinetic damage, you gain "damage reduction equal to your base attack bonus."
Is this DR X/-? It seems like it is. Given the description of the Resistant Armor series of spells, which are written very similarly, I would guess so.
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It is DR against all kinetic attacks. So an attack that deals bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing. And you are correct that nothing ignores the DR unless it is some special ability that explicitly says ignore all DR.
Wow, that's a feat? Can I take at 1st level?
No. Requires a BAB of +4 or more.
Makes sense, but that's not a very big prereq.
That seems incredibly powerful for a single feat, unless I'm missing something. The cybernetic upgrade Dermal Plating can only go up to DR 7, and it costs half a million credits.
Waiting for the nerfbat.
Yea it will be nerfed. The question is will it be = to half your BAB, Restricted to your choice of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing, or both?
I don't see it being nerfed. While it's nice at low levels once everybody has 15d10+ weapons it's not quite that useful :3
I don't see it being nerfed. While it's nice at low levels once everybody has 15d10+ weapons it's not quite that useful :3
15d10 is an average of 82.5. Lowering that to 62.5 at the cost of only one feat is pretty big.
My biggest issue with the feat is that you can either pick all kinetic damage, or only a single energy damage type. I see no reason not to pick kinetic.
I think DR equal to half BAB, but one type of energy resist equal to full BAB would still make it a good feat.
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Yea it will be nerfed. The question is will it be = to half your BAB, Restricted to your choice of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing, or both?
It's not that it will be nerfed, it's that it's slightly glitched right now compared to the original intent.
My biggest issue with the feat is that you can either pick all kinetic damage, or only a single energy damage type. I see no reason not to pick kinetic.
I think DR equal to half BAB, but one type of energy resist equal to full BAB would still make it a good feat.
There was a period of time when all the resistance abilities also let you resist slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing using resistance rather than DR (on the grounds that DR/bludgeoning or piercing meaning you resist slashing is counter-intuitive but resist slashing 10 is easier), and that's when the feat was written. Then late in the game, that got changed to cover all three of those damage types and reduce the resistance by half (as you suggested), which also avoids the awkward DR/bludgeoning or piercing construction, but this feat missed the second step, unlike the other features. In theory you could also houserule it to be full BAB against one of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing if you like, but your suggestion seems the most likely change to me, since that's how the other abilities were adjusted.
Ah, interesting.
Thankies for the insight.
Also, bear in mind, that lots of weapons deal elemental damage now; your DR 10/- isn't as effective when your opponents have lasers
If you're going to 'adjust' Enhanced Resistance, do so based on character level instead of BAB. All it does is equate to mitigating the CR-derived weapon damage bonus as-written for one of six possible damage types.
I'd leave it as-is, but it's not my decision to make.
Yea it will be nerfed. The question is will it be = to half your BAB, Restricted to your choice of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing, or both?It's not that it will be nerfed, it's that it's slightly glitched right now compared to the original intent.
There was a period of time when all the resistance abilities also let you resist slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing using resistance rather than DR (on the grounds that DR/bludgeoning or piercing meaning you resist slashing is counter-intuitive but resist slashing 10 is easier), and that's when the feat was written. Then late in the game, that got changed to cover all three of those damage types and reduce the resistance by half (as you suggested), which also avoids the awkward DR/bludgeoning or piercing construction, but this feat missed the second step, unlike the other features. In theory you could also houserule it to be full BAB against one of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing if you like, but your suggestion seems the most likely change to me, since that's how the other abilities were adjusted.My biggest issue with the feat is that you can either pick all kinetic damage, or only a single energy damage type. I see no reason not to pick kinetic.
I think DR equal to half BAB, but one type of energy resist equal to full BAB would still make it a good feat.
Oh! I like the choice of B, S or P resistances option. That makes it a nice option that doesn't make various other things effectively obsolete.
Whereas the BAB/2 DR option is still strictly better than (say) the Solarian's Dark Matter ability, or the Guard Soldier's 13th lvl Kinetic Resistance ability. And that seems like a bit too much.
Ps: Thanks for the heads up about the likely errata!
Could've permitted dark matter, kinetic resistance and the armor upgrade to stack with it. ;)
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Yea it will be nerfed. The question is will it be = to half your BAB, Restricted to your choice of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing, or both?It's not that it will be nerfed, it's that it's slightly glitched right now compared to the original intent.
There was a period of time when all the resistance abilities also let you resist slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing using resistance rather than DR (on the grounds that DR/bludgeoning or piercing meaning you resist slashing is counter-intuitive but resist slashing 10 is easier), and that's when the feat was written. Then late in the game, that got changed to cover all three of those damage types and reduce the resistance by half (as you suggested), which also avoids the awkward DR/bludgeoning or piercing construction, but this feat missed the second step, unlike the other features. In theory you could also houserule it to be full BAB against one of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing if you like, but your suggestion seems the most likely change to me, since that's how the other abilities were adjusted.My biggest issue with the feat is that you can either pick all kinetic damage, or only a single energy damage type. I see no reason not to pick kinetic.
I think DR equal to half BAB, but one type of energy resist equal to full BAB would still make it a good feat.
Oh! I like the choice of B, S or P resistances option. That makes it a nice option that doesn't make various other things effectively obsolete.
Whereas the BAB/2 DR option is still strictly better than (say) the Solarian's Dark Matter ability, or the Guard Soldier's 13th lvl Kinetic Resistance ability. And that seems like a bit too much.
Ps: Thanks for the heads up about the likely errata!
Using resistance to the physical also makes the decision of which type to use a bit more dynamic, which I like, and allowed for some higher numbers (as those of you who ran the analysis concluded in this thread, there's no way we would have made the resistance that high in the first place if it wasn't to one specific damage type when the feat was designed). However, that runs up against the fact that it would need to define "resistance" rather "energy resistance" which monkeys with a lot of compatibility issues and ultimately wasn't the right choice for the game. Doesn't stop you from using our old design though; I probably will too.
Incidentally, because of the ability to get higher physical resistances than in Pathfinder as a matter of course (and DR up to 10/- or 20 resistance to slashing is still way higher than a feat in Pathfinder), you sometimes have to look closely at PFRPG monsters that have a huge number of smaller physical attacks when converted to SF; they sometimes wind up losing bigger amounts of their damage output from the higher resists, so that could lead to needing a few tweaks.
Yeah, I really like the dynamic element. I can imagine a party of people who have taken it for different damage types having fun conversations:
Soldier PC: "That thing is brandishing three foot long adamantium claws?! (Looks at the Mystic PC who choose slashing resistance.) You first."
If you're going to 'adjust' Enhanced Resistance, do so based on character level instead of BAB. All it does is equate to mitigating the CR-derived weapon damage bonus as-written for one of six possible damage types.
I'd leave it as-is, but it's not my decision to make.
The halving would just be for the physical damage (were the fix to be applied here like it was everywhere else in the game after resistance to individual kinetic types bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing was removed), not the energy resistance, as a way of balancing the option to protect against all kinetic damage in the game with the option to protect against one of five possible energy damage types and giving you meaningful choices (there is no meaningful choice if the "all kinetic" option gives the same resistance as "one energy" since you'd always just take "all kinetic"). As to why it's based on BAB and not character level, full BAB martial characters deserve some cool advantages, including in how they use their feats, since it's more fun to let everyone have it but give martials more than to restrict the feats to those classes.
Doesn't stack with resist energy and similar effects though.
Not all characters have a full BAB, so selecting it as a lower-BAB class elevates the qualifying level at which Enhanced Kinetic Resistance can be acquired for those characters. Cutting in half again reduces the feat's value for those characters is my thinking. DR 10 that doesn't stack at 20th is one thing ... DR 5 that doesn't stack is marginal at best, burning a feat to save an inexpensive armor upgrade.
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Yeah, I really like the dynamic element. I can imagine a party of people who have taken it for different damage types having fun conversations:
Soldier PC: "That thing is brandishing hree foot long adamantium claws?! (Looks at the Mystic PC who choose slashing resistance.) You first."
There were also armor mods that gave a single physical resistance with an added related effect. So like inertial fields that resisted bludgeoning and also made you harder to push, super-hard plating that resists piercing and makes the armor itself harder to damage, etc. It had some cool side effects, but it didn't play nicely with other rules.
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I like it as is. Don't get me wrong, it's a very strong feat, and its likely that the dr version will be taken almost every time. But altering it to work only against one of the three subtypes means extra complications. And may not change the advantage, I mean all my range based characters would take piercing because only the gyrojet versions of guns do kenetic but don't do piercing. And for melee you either have most things doing slashing(though not even close to the same percentage I'll admit., or its effect doesn't matter because their claws/bite does multiple subtypes of damage like they did in PF. Though I'll admit I don't have any creature stats to look at to see if they did this in SF. So either it still almost always applies as it does now, or it rarely does. And either way now you have extra book keeping to pay attention to and so does your GM for just this feat. Plus it's bonus is just reducing the addition of level/CR to damage in this system.
Personally I was considering it for my soldier for fire resistance. And if I had a solarion I almost certainly would take it for that because of their other Dr option. In both cases my EAC is going to be the easier target to hit, so why not patch a hole, kinetic is only one of 6 damage types after all, and just because it's the one PF players are used to seeing doesn't mean it's going to be nearly as common here.
Just my 2 cents.
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It's also a little wonky how the feat, as written, can't really be taken by a single-classed character who exactly meets the requirements.
It requires BAB +4, and it's not a combat feat. That means Soldiers and Solarians can get it at level 5, and all other classes have to wait until level 7. In both cases, their BABs will be +5.
To qualify with BAB +4, you'd need to go 3 levels of Solarian or Soldier, and 2 of a 3/4 BAB class to get +4 BAB by level 5.
Maybe it was intended to be a Combat feat? It's pretty clearly about avoiding damage in combat.
Has any official rule change happened for this feat yet, or is it still RAW for say, Starfinder Society play?
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It hasn't been changed and honestly I think it shouldn't.
Consider that you have the following damage types:
Fire
Electricity
Cold
Acid
Sonic
& "Kinetic"
The feat lets you get up to 20 resistance vs any of them. But there's still 5 other damage types that you don't resist, and you can only choose the feat once.
It's an okay feat if I can get one type of energy resist or DR 20/-, but if you nerf the amount of resistance of any of these damage types it's basically going to make it a trap option. Or if you decide to split the DR into working against b/p/s.
As it sits my melee solarion will probably take this feat, but only because there aren't a host of particularly interesting feats. And while the damage reduction is good, you still have 5 other damage types you don't resist. Please don't nerf this feat, because as it sits it's pretty hard to justify taking, except that there aren't a lot of better feats to take. Especially for the "kinetic" damage type as laser guns have been so much more common so far in my experience.
Eh I don't see it as that huge. Even for the kinetic stuff, basically its just negating the weapon specialization damage boost that everything (even NPCs and monsters) seem to get for their primary weapons anyway.
I suppose a downside would be that the thinking would be, "Why wouldn't anyone take it?" At least as a PC.