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I think the class can get along just fine, but I do wish it had 6 skill pts/level, which is weird that it doesnt, given that it has 12 class skills. Accidental oversight, or intentional by design?
The first party in the first session ran through a more difficult version of the adventure, and we triumphed without a hitch.You keep comparing the two games; this is a bad idea for several reasons, most important being that too many variables were changed for any comparison to be valid. To truly compare the solarion versus, say a fighter, then changing the fighter in the first game to a solarion in the second should be the only change made. Even then a single game wouldn't tell you much as the dice can be fickle; you'd have to play each way many times to even out the dice rolls for each side.
Of course it probably isn't feasible for a single group to do, but then one should reserve judgment until later, like when the game is widely available and you have more data from which to draw conclusions.
This is pretty important, considering the operative in the first game carried the party and the operative in the second game somehow didn't. Not only are the variables different, but the information is pretty lacking. Need more detailed notes to form good, usable working theories on what classes may be lacking (or have too much of, since the first operative was apparently crazily OP and the second nothing to write home about)
There was no operative in the second game. There was also no technomancer either.
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I find some of the criticisms in this thread frankly laughable and I feel like I must address them.
But you didn't build a Solarian.
The solarian was advertised as a melee specialized class, it being a front line heavy hitter IS how you're expected to build it most of the time, this is evident by it being able to create a melee weapon and having features either to do with mobility or abilities centered on itself.
But you tried to ignore the solarian's class features.
The OP has already expressed that their level 1 zenith powers never got a chance to be used as enemies never actually clustered around her, so saying they were ignored is a moot point there.
As for solar blade and solar armor, the OP was clearly trying to build the best melee solarian possible, and neither of these abilities lend themselves to that.
Solar Weapons are only better than knives at 1st level, making the use a normal weapon the way to go if you want to maximize damage. Solar armor is only better than heavy armor if you have high enough DEX to benefit from the high max dex cap of the light armor. As with any low dex character, it's not unreasonable to want to wear heavy armor, and as with a front line melee fighter, it's not unreasonable to want to maximize AC.
But you wouldn't dump X on Y.
A solarian is not a monk, or a bard, the benefits it gets from Charisma are only important because it can't get them from another ability score, the solarian is first and foremost meant to be a melee specialized combat class (it has full BAB and no longarm proficiency) and should therefore be optimized as such.
A monk without a high wisdom is not just deprived of ki points and ki power DCs, it's also deprived of most of its defenses and mobility. A monk without Wis needs to wear armor, and a monk with armor can't flurry or move fast, neutering the class greatly.
A solarian doesn't have these problems, its Cha isn't integral to the class virtually at all as its ability to do its job as a melee front liner is not dependant on that Cha.
A bard without high charisma is virtually useless, but the bard isn't like a solarian at all, a solarian is more akin to the paladin, it's first and foremost a high BAB combatant, with only situational abilities based on its charisma.
A solarian has some interesting utility in its revelations, but they are situational and not required for the solarian to do its job. The solarian's job is to hit things, just like the fighter, the revelations are the garnish to this and are to be focused on second, after the solarian's fighting ability, not before it.
A better comparison would be the gunslinger or swashbuckler. Sure they need Wis or Cha for their resource pool and some of their abilities, but they're combat classes and it's not "bad building" to prioritize that over Wis or Cha.
The difference is that a gunslinger doesn't determine his negative hit points from Wis and a swashbuckler doesn't do so from Cha, a Solarian does, meaning that a class designed to mostly melee needs to pump a non-combat ability score if it wants to survive getting down to 0 HP.
This is a really bad idea, as it means the the character has to be built below par in the class's main are of expertise (combat) in order to allow it to survive long enough to apply that expertise. All in all it's self-defeating, you need high Cha in order to survive going into melee, but you need low Cha to have high enough stats to melee effectively.
At higher levels this disparity is mitigated as the ability scores can go from 14 to 20, but at 1st level the difference between a 14 Str and an 18 Str make a huge difference in one's melee capabilities.
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It would be about like someone in Pathfinder trying to play a core rogue as a front line fighter.But the core rogues are a bad class...
No, the core rogue is an underpowered class in comparison to the others. There are a lot of reasons for this that have been hashed out a number of times on these boards.
The point remains valid. Different classes need to be played differently.
The OP made a Solarion and optimized it for the types of combat that were going to come up, and the result was a TPK. You could say "Have less Str/Dex and more Con/Cha" but that's not going to significantly raise the overall power level, because you're weakening it one area as much as you're strengthening it in another. A Cha-focused build would have been better out of combat, but lack of out-of-combat abilities wasn't the complaint.
I don't think the build was the issue. More likely it was:
Bad encounter design (inexperienced GMs are going to be a problem in any new game).
Bad luck (at level 1, with only three characters, it doesn't take many bad dice rolls to put you into a death spiral).
Or bad allies.
As several have pointed out, he played the Solarian as if he was playing a soldier.
Let's review the problems:
- The player came in not liking the class.
- Too few resolve because he didn't prioritize Charisma
- Skill problems. Did he look at using Skill Adept to try and round out the skills in the group?
- AC problems. We don't know the full scoop here, but the Solarian should be able to skimp on either Armor or Weapon a little bit. Taking those savings and investing them into better equipment on the other side should help.
- It sounds like the group may not have been well balanced for the second run
- The two runs were not equivalent. Anyone who has GMed a fair amount of PFS knows that the 4 player adjustment doesn't always work there. I'm not surprised if a GM trying to adjust difficulty in Starfinder would have problems getting it right given how much some things have changed.
I am sure that the original poster will be much happier playing soldiers and operatives.
I am not convinced that his experiences show us anything other than you shouldn't bring resolve too low and that you need to adapt your style to the class you are playing.
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A solarian is more akin to the paladin, it's first and foremost a high BAB combatant, with only situational abilities based on its charisma.
Even then, a Paladin gets:
- Fort
- Ref
- Will
- Spellcasting
- Attack(During Smite)
- AC(During Smite)
The amount of stuff a Paladin gets from Cha gives a damn good reason for a Paladin to want Cha, most of which the Solarian can't claim.
Paizo really should have given Charisma...something. It's the only stat with zero usage out of 'Being the stat behind a few skills'. Int gives more skill points, Dex gives basically everything, Strength lets you melee, Wisdom gives you will and Con gives Fort/Fatigue.
I don't find much value in this. Shooting the class in the foot to make it just a beatstick gives me less information than if the car class was worked with it's context and abilities.
However, unlike the Envoy, which I very much enjoyed so far, I feel less inclined to defend the Solarian because I don't really like it. I won't be able to play one until Friday but the flavor is rather niche based on what it does and as a controller fightman first level is kind of bleak, to the point where I'm going to have to play it at 5th level just to get a real grasp on it. I feel like it was supposed to get some bonus based on attunement level but it got scrapped for some reason. Either that or you pick one attunement every five levels from a suite of more than two modes.
Anyways I'll report when I have play information based on a build less focused on Pathfinder logic beatstick optimization but don't get your hopes up.
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Part of my issue with it's controller stuff is that the radius is so very small and it doesn't keep people there once it pulls them. Starfinder works under different assumptions to Pathfinder, a big one being 'A lot of dudes use guns'. Getting people close enough to catch a few people in your AOE radius is very tricky when it's centered on yourself. If the enemy have the sense to not try and cluster together in perfect 'Throw grenade here' zones you'll have a hard time catching them with a Solarian.
There was no operative in the second game. There was also no technomancer either.
Ah. So there wasn't. I misread something in all the back and forth.
Still I'm curious why it's all about the solarion and not the soldier or mystic pulling their weight. Or the mishmash of approaches [one sniping, one going full melee, and the mystic doing full question mark] to combat just not working out against... whatever they were fighting. With 'poor rolls.'
One of the reasons people talk about math balance more is it is testable and repeatable. This really isn't- very vague and no details to help determine what went wrong or why. Just an abrupt conclusion that matches the premise.
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Part of my issue with it's controller stuff is that the radius is so very small and it doesn't keep people there once it pulls them. Starfinder works under different assumptions to Pathfinder, a big one being 'A lot of dudes use guns'. Getting people close enough to catch a few people in your AOE radius is very tricky when it's centered on yourself. If the enemy have the sense to not try and cluster together in perfect 'Throw grenade here' zones you'll have a hard time catching them with a Solarian.
This one bugs me a lot. Anyone witin 20 feet and it's easier to just cleave them than use a standard action to pull them.thonly way I can see using this is if I'm tagteaming will someone who has cleave, which is a waste of a full BAB dude.
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Part of my issue with it's controller stuff is that the radius is so very small and it doesn't keep people there once it pulls them. Starfinder works under different assumptions to Pathfinder, a big one being 'A lot of dudes use guns'. Getting people close enough to catch a few people in your AOE radius is very tricky when it's centered on yourself. If the enemy have the sense to not try and cluster together in perfect 'Throw grenade here' zones you'll have a hard time catching them with a Solarian.This one bugs me a lot. Anyone witin 20 feet and it's easier to just cleave them than use a standard action to pull them.thonly way I can see using this is if I'm tagteaming will someone who has cleave, which is a waste of a full BAB dude.
It's a bit niche but one fun thing to do is Blazing Orbit away in a straight line and then Black Hole the enemy through every fiery tile for 6d6 damage at level 6.
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"So, a little theorycrafting shows this class to be pretty bad. It's a clunky confusing mess of abilities that don't mesh well with a primary stat which gives you next to nothing."
"Theorycrafting will only tell you so much. We need to hear your in-game experience to be able to draw an accurate picture!"
"Ok, I got some in-game play experience. The class was pretty bad. It's a clunky mess of abilities that you're mostly either better off not using or won't have much opportunity to use, and the primary stat gives you next to nothing."
"We don't want your in-game experience."
You guys....
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That second one might be more valid if they were actually playing a Solarian, not a 'classless' character trying to be a melee soldier.
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That second one might be more valid if they were actually playing a Solarian, not a 'classless' character trying to be a melee soldier.
How were they not playing a Solarian?
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It may have said Solarian in the class section of the character sheet, but they said it themselves -
"My character was thus nothing more than a classless character with a +1 bonus to damage rolls and a measly 1 Resolve Point."
Like others have said, it's mostly just a melee soldier-type character built on the chassis of the Solarian.
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I find some of the criticisms in this thread frankly laughable and I feel like I must address them.
But you didn't build a Solarian.The solarian was advertised as a melee specialized class, it being a front line heavy hitter IS how you're expected to build it most of the time, this is evident by it being able to create a melee weapon and having features either to do with mobility or abilities centered on itself.
But you tried to ignore the solarian's class features.The OP has already expressed that their level 1 zenith powers never got a chance to be used as enemies never actually clustered around her, so saying they were ignored is a moot point there.
As for solar blade and solar armor, the OP was clearly trying to build the best melee solarian possible, and neither of these abilities lend themselves to that.
Solar Weapons are only better than knives at 1st level, making the use a normal weapon the way to go if you want to maximize damage. Solar armor is only better than heavy armor if you have high enough DEX to benefit from the high max dex cap of the light armor. As with any low dex character, it's not unreasonable to want to wear heavy armor, and as with a front line melee fighter, it's not unreasonable to want to maximize AC.
But you wouldn't dump X on Y.A solarian is not a monk, or a bard, the benefits it gets from Charisma are only important because it can't get them from another ability score, the solarian is first and foremost meant to be a melee specialized combat class (it has full BAB and no longarm proficiency) and should therefore be optimized as such.
A monk without a high wisdom is not just deprived of ki points and ki power DCs, it's also deprived of most of its defenses and mobility. A monk without Wis needs to wear armor, and a monk with armor can't flurry or move fast, neutering the class greatly.
A solarian doesn't have these problems, its Cha isn't integral to the class virtually at all as its ability to do its...
Every. PLEASE take another look at this post. I was about to go into it myself, but i don't need to when someone else already expressed how I feel.
The Solarian has a fair amount of problems, and the biggest is it's MADness without a real benefit from it.
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"So, a little theorycrafting shows this class to be pretty bad. It's a clunky confusing mess of abilities that don't mesh well with a primary stat which gives you next to nothing."
"Theorycrafting will only tell you so much. We need to hear your in-game experience to be able to draw an accurate picture!"
"Ok, I got some in-game play experience. The class was pretty bad. It's a clunky mess of abilities that you're mostly either better off not using or won't have much opportunity to use, and the primary stat gives you next to nothing."
"We don't want your in-game experience."
You guys....
To be fair I think both sides make valid points, though I do notice the irony. Personally I've enjoyed playing a Solarian in a one shot and although the class was fun to play, I definitely feel that Solarians as they are don't offer anything unique that makes them worth picking over say a soldier except for flavor. My Solar Armor build was focused on maxing Cha to solve the resolve issue and then pumping everything else into Dex to get a non-trash to hit on operative weapons. I was able to stay in the front line (not on my own mind you) and hit fairly reliably but the amount of damage you actually deal feels fairly low, I didn't feel like I was falling behind but I don't feel like I was standing out either. Overall it feels like it could use some more powerful revelations but there are a few ways you can build them to make them functional. I'd be interested to see them at higher levels when you can use the more interesting abilities.
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Would you say your definition of "insufficient" is "lower than the possible maximum you can achieve across any class"? Because then I would argue the issue lies in the definition, not the class ability.So you wasted in my opinion on a feat to have heavy armor because you were not happy with light armor and so did not want to use the class abilities to say that the class does not work which means not playing the class and just making a character with tables based of a class.If solar armor is insufficient for a Strength-based frontliner's AC needs, then that is a problem with solar armor itself.
If you're standing on the front line, why would you not want as much AC as you can possibly get?
On one hand people are saying 'oh, you built a glass cannon, it's no wonder you died with no survivability!' and on the other 'oh, you wasted a feat on survivability! You can live with a couple less points of AC!'.
A point or two more AC will keep you alive a lot longer than a couple extra points on Constitution. Make up your damned minds.
It may have said Solarian in the class section of the character sheet, but they said it themselves -
"My character was thus nothing more than a classless character with a +1 bonus to damage rolls and a measly 1 Resolve Point."
Like others have said, it's mostly just a melee soldier-type character built on the chassis of the Solarian.
That's because the chassis of the Solarian is an underwhelming melee soldier-type.
It's a bit niche but one fun thing to do is Blazing Orbit away in a straight line and then Black Hole the enemy through every fiery tile for 6d6 damage at level 6.Part of my issue with it's controller stuff is that the radius is so very small and it doesn't keep people there once it pulls them. Starfinder works under different assumptions to Pathfinder, a big one being 'A lot of dudes use guns'. Getting people close enough to catch a few people in your AOE radius is very tricky when it's centered on yourself. If the enemy have the sense to not try and cluster together in perfect 'Throw grenade here' zones you'll have a hard time catching them with a Solarian.This one bugs me a lot. Anyone witin 20 feet and it's easier to just cleave them than use a standard action to pull them.thonly way I can see using this is if I'm tagteaming will someone who has cleave, which is a waste of a full BAB dude.
And if they pass their fort save, remembering that you can't really afford to invest a lot in Charisma, then you just walked away from the guy you need to be meleeing, and wasted your standard action.
Niche is definitely a word for it...
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Not taking advantage of Solar Manifestation is a major mistake though, as that way you forfeit one of the Solarian's few advantages over the Soldier. The Solar Manifestation basically gives you either a free AC bonus or a free weapon, so you can spend more money on whichever of the two you don't get for free.
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Not taking advantage of Solar Manifestation is a major mistake though, as that way you forfeit one of the Solarian's few advantages over the Soldier. The Solar Manifestation basically gives you either a free AC bonus or a free weapon, so you can spend more money on whichever of the two you don't get for free.
Except it's not an advantage. Especially at 1st level, solar weapon is worse than one you can buy, solar armour + light armour (especially on a class that can't focus heavily on dex) is lower AC than heavy armour.
It's literally a class feature that you using makes yourself a worse melee combatant (which is what the class is supposed to be doing, whatever the 'you should've just made a soldier' people bleat on - and really, for a class that's supposed to be a melee combatant, isn't 'you should have made a soldier instead if that's what you want to do' pretty damning in itself?)
Not taking advantage of Solar Manifestation is a major mistake though, as that way you forfeit one of the Solarian's few advantages over the Soldier. The Solar Manifestation basically gives you either a free AC bonus or a free weapon, so you can spend more money on whichever of the two you don't get for free.
A suit of hidden soldier armor costs 465 credits for EAC/KAC 15/17 at 14 Dex. Kasatha microcord costs 460 credits for EAC/KAC 14/16, counting solar armor. How is choosing the former over the latter a major mistake?
A tactical pike costs 475 credits for 1d8 damage (up from solar weapon's 1d6) and reach. What else should the player have spent their money on?
edit: Throne beat me to the punch. Well, maybe the concrete example will help anyway.
Not using the class features in playtest is still not useful, but as I said, it does not all that appealing either way, particularly at first level so I have no basis to defend it. My only hope is that Solarian is the baseline for melee combat and Soldier is just overboard or that it's weak to compensate for how useful the later abilities are. I'm going to play it as a lightweight mobile duelist with charm and some control elements and hope for the best.
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Not using the class features in playtest is still not useful, but as I said, it does not all that appealing either way, particularly at first level so I have no basis to defend it. My only hope is that Solarian is the baseline for melee combat and Soldier is just overboard or that it's weak to compensate for how useful the later abilities are. I'm going to play it as a lightweight mobile duelist with charm and some control elements and hope for the best.
That depends if you're testing specific features, or the class overall.
If you're trying to use the class as best you can, of course you're not going to use the features which make you worse for what you're trying to do.
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A suit of hidden soldier armor costs 465 credits for EAC/KAC 15/17 at 14 Dex. Kasatha microcord costs 460 credits for EAC/KAC 14/16, counting solar armor. How is choosing the former over the latter a major mistake?A tactical pike costs 475 credits for 1d8 damage (up from solar weapon's 1d6) and reach. What else should the player have spent their money on?
Not necessarily that it's a "mistake", but taking that light armor means you get another +1 on your skills from less ACP, 5 more movement speed on a class that is "all about battlefield movement", and a feat that you didn't have to invest in heavy armor prof for the "cost of 1/1 ACs.
Not taking advantage of Solar Manifestation is a major mistake though, as that way you forfeit one of the Solarian's few advantages over the Soldier. The Solar Manifestation basically gives you either a free AC bonus or a free weapon, so you can spend more money on whichever of the two you don't get for free.
A suit of hidden soldier armor costs 465 credits for EAC/KAC 15/17 at 14 Dex. Kasatha microcord costs 460 credits for EAC/KAC 14/16, counting solar armor. How is choosing the former over the latter a major mistake?
A tactical pike costs 475 credits for 1d8 damage (up from solar weapon's 1d6) and reach. What else should the player have spent their money on?
edit: Throne beat me to the punch. Well, maybe the concrete example will help anyway.
If you are using Solar weapon, you can buy Iridishell, Basic for 755 credits. 15/18 at 14 Dex. You lose reach and 1 point of average damage in exchange for 1 extra KAC. That setup actually has higher AC than the Soldier given an 18 Str/14 Dex for stats, unless the Soldier also goes for a cheaper weapon, evening it out. Although this really only applies to the first game or so.
I've considered a 18 Str/12 Dex/9 Wis/14 Cha build that went Iridishell. Would have the same AC as the build here, no reach, 1 less average damage and 3 resolve points. Although this weekend I'll be playing a 14 Str/14 Dex/14 Cha, Solar Armor, Fleet, Weapon Focus using a Tactical pike and Kastha Microcord I. 1 less AC than whats presented here, 2 less to-hit and damage, but 15 feet more movement and better DCs for powers. Its going to be a Starfinder society game so I'll be interested to see how well it does.
Not necessarily that it's a "mistake", but taking that light armor means you get another +1 on your skills from less ACP, 5 more movement speed on a class that is "all about battlefield movement", and a feat that you didn't have to invest in heavy armor prof for the "cost of 1/1 ACs.
Taking the feat into account, this strikes me as an eminently reasonable option, though as you say, I don't think opting for heavy armor is a mistake, either.
Its going to be a Starfinder society game so I'll be interested to see how well it does.
I'd be, too.
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But that's not what you did. You ignored all of the Solarian's features. If you wanted to test how the Solarian fared, you would have actually built a character designed to use its class features. Even if you say you didn't use those features because they're bad, you still didn't actually test the Solarian, you tested a classless melee character. Of course that ended poorly. And it's true that going with more Charisma instead of Strength or Dexterity would also have ended poorly... but you can't claim that it would have, only that it might have... because you didn't actually test it.
I feel like people are beating a dead horse at this point, but which class features, precisely, were being ignored?
Would taking solar armor, and trading a point of attack and damage bonus or a point of AC for a feat and another five feet of movement have made a difference?
What about using solar weapon and buying iridshell, and trading damage and reach for a point of AC?
What about shifting four points from Strength to Charisma? The class would have played exactly the same for most of the game--until the OP needed to spend resolve points--except for (a) being worse in melee and (b) being slightly better at your highly situational, usable-once-per-three-rounds zenith abilities?
I mean, you're appealing to this other way of playing a solarian like it's some big deal, but the closest thing anyone has said to substantiating this has been to note the possibility of the trades I mentioned above.
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But that's not what you did. You ignored all of the Solarian's features. If you wanted to test how the Solarian fared, you would have actually built a character designed to use its class features. Even if you say you didn't use those features because they're bad, you still didn't actually test the Solarian, you tested a classless melee character. Of course that ended poorly. And it's true that going with more Charisma instead of Strength or Dexterity would also have ended poorly... but you can't claim that it would have, only that it might have... because you didn't actually test it.If not going to use either then why play a solarian?I wanted to see how a solarian would fare at 1st level, which means no soldier (blitz) dip.
...except 'not using the bad stuff on a class' is still seeing how that class fares.
People can screaam 'oh, but you're playing it wrong!' all they like. The class positions itself as a melee combatant, so wanting to play the best melee combatant solarian isn't even 'playing a solarian cosplaying as a soldier', especially at 1st level when half your class abilities are worse than just buying equipment, and the other half are so situational that most of the time they might as well not be there.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Lashunta Xenoseeker Solarion
Str 16
Dex 11
Con 12
Int 10
Wis 8
Cha 16
Wields either a Pike for reach or a staff/spear for block, depending on if you like AC or Reach. Going Solar Armor grants you another +1 to AC, meaning if you went block your AC is 2 higher. Plus, throw a few ranks into Diplomacy and holy crap! you're useful outside of combat too. Could even switch dex for con to really get the most out of your AC at the cost of some hit points.
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This is not a solo game. If your party fails to work together effectively, your characters will die.
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And if you can't pull your weight when your teammates are relying on you because your class is deeply fundamentally flawed, then your characters will die.
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Making me want to look into a Dex/chr based solarian. Guns and class abilities...
I'd considered it, but most of your abilities are either extremely short range, or explicitly melee only.
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No, it's not. You didn't use your class features and have them fail to be effective, you just assumed they would be ineffective and chose not to use them at all....except 'not using the bad stuff on a class' is still seeing how that class fares.But that's not what you did. You ignored all of the Solarian's features. If you wanted to test how the Solarian fared, you would have actually built a character designed to use its class features. Even if you say you didn't use those features because they're bad, you still didn't actually test the Solarian, you tested a classless melee character. Of course that ended poorly. And it's true that going with more Charisma instead of Strength or Dexterity would also have ended poorly... but you can't claim that it would have, only that it might have... because you didn't actually test it.If not going to use either then why play a solarian?I wanted to see how a solarian would fare at 1st level, which means no soldier (blitz) dip.
You don't need to use solar weapon to know it does less damage at less range than the alternative. Simple reading comprehension will do.
You don't need to use solar armour to know it gives less AC than the alternative. Simple reading comprehension will do.
And you don't need to use Blackhole or Supernova to know that you're going to go whole game sessions without the opportunity to use them coming up, when you've just gone a whole game session without the opportunity to use them coming up.
Your claim is mistaken at best, but more likely just outright disingenuous.
Not taking advantage of Solar Manifestation is a major mistake though, as that way you forfeit one of the Solarian's few advantages over the Soldier. The Solar Manifestation basically gives you either a free AC bonus or a free weapon, so you can spend more money on whichever of the two you don't get for free.
Except it's not an advantage. Especially at 1st level, solar weapon is worse than one you can buy, solar armour + light armour (especially on a class that can't focus heavily on dex) is lower AC than heavy armour.
It's literally a class feature that you using makes yourself a worse melee combatant (which is what the class is supposed to be doing, whatever the 'you should've just made a soldier' people bleat on - and really, for a class that's supposed to be a melee combatant, isn't 'you should have made a soldier instead if that's what you want to do' pretty damning in itself?)
Are we talking the original 1000 credits, or after a couple of adventures?
Not taking advantage of Solar Manifestation is a major mistake though, as that way you forfeit one of the Solarian's few advantages over the Soldier. The Solar Manifestation basically gives you either a free AC bonus or a free weapon, so you can spend more money on whichever of the two you don't get for free.
A suit of hidden soldier armor costs 465 credits for EAC/KAC 15/17 at 14 Dex. Kasatha microcord costs 460 credits for EAC/KAC 14/16, counting solar armor. How is choosing the former over the latter a major mistake?
A tactical pike costs 475 credits for 1d8 damage (up from solar weapon's 1d6) and reach. What else should the player have spent their money on?
edit: Throne beat me to the punch. Well, maybe the concrete example will help anyway.
I'm still trying to sort out equipment choices myself and have been focused on the light armors, so pardon me if I'm not sure what the optimal choices for a class I wasn't interested in are.
I tried to break this down and it didn't work for me. I'm probably missing something about the three builds.
Soldier
Hidden Soldier heavy armor, 465 credits, +3 EAC +5 KAC, -2 ACP, -5 ft movement.
Pike, Tactical advanced melee 2H weapon, 475 credits, 1d8, reach
You have spent 940 of 1000 credits, you don't have enough money for a pistol.
Are you sure that the soldier wants to do that?
Solar Weapon Solarian
Feat spent on Heavy Armor proficiency.
Heavy Armor: Hidden Soldier, 465 credits, +3 EAC +5 KAC -2 ACP -5 ft movement.
Small Arms: Laser Pistol, Azimuth, 350 credits, 1d4 F, 80 ft, 20 charges
Could also go with:
Semi-auto pistol, tactical, 260 credits, 1d6 P, 30 ft. 9 rounds
Spent either 815 or 725 of your initial 1000 credits.
Solar Armor Solarian
Feat spent on Weapon Focus?
Light Armor: Kasha Microcord, 460 credits, +1 EAC +3 KAC, -1 ACP, no speed adjustment
Advanced Melee: Assault Hammer, 95 credits, 1d6 B
Semi-auto pistol, tactical, 260 credits, 1d6 P, 30 ft. 9 rounds
Spent 815 of your 1000 credits.
Solarian Tactics
Hold either your Solar Weapon or your Assault Hammer in one hand, the pistol or laser in the other.
Against the soldier with the reach weapon, the Solarian tries to shoot them as they close while gaining Photon mode. Hopefully once the soldiers gets there, you are close to being able to Supernova.
I expect it would be a rare situation where a Solarian goes Gravitational attunement, the +1 Reflex isn't worth giving up the +1 damage and ability to Supernova.
So, what were the equipment packages actually used?
Did the Solarian use their Skill Adept to pick up one of the skills the group needed? There was mention of failed skill rolls causing more combat.
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This is not a solo game. If your party fails to work together effectively, your characters will die.
True. But some evidence as to why the team failed to work together (or if they failed to work together would be nice). So far, there is a general revelation of 'poor rolls,' and not much in the way of details.
But lets break this down
In any case, the session. Our party struggled through the two skill-based noncombat sequences, even taking into account that the GM had made them easier. Whereas my Intelligence 16 operative carried the entire group outside of combat, my Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma 10 solarian had a hard time with such things. Much of the time, they just did not have the skills with which to meaningfully contribute, and their skill bonuses were not especially high. Such is the hard lot of a Strength-primary character: twiddling thumbs when not in battle. We definitely suffered for having no operative around, and no Intelligence-based character altogether.
Ok, first we two skill things which the party had no answer to.
I'd love to know what the skill sequences actually were that 14 ranks of skills between the three characters addressed nothing at all.The first fight was rough. We were only three PCs, but the GM had halved the number of enemies in the battle, so in theory, it should have been an even easier fight than before. Perhaps due to poor rolls on our side, we blundered through much of it. My character stayed in photon mode throughout the whole battle, and never used Black Hole or Supernova. Even if my character was a Charisma 16 lashunta solarian instead, it would not have mattered, as there were no good opportunities to actually use either revelation; the enemies were too spread-out, as a single melee unit and a single ranged unit.
OK, first encounter, which tells us very little other than 'poor rolls'
Except... the enemies are one ranged and one melee. So to me, Black Hole comes out with an immediate use- pulling the melee attacker off the ranged PCs, or pulling the ranged attacker into the general scrum.
Similarly, rushing to the ranged attacker means the melee enemy has to move closer, allowing supernova to hit both.
The second battle was a catastrophe. It was against a single melee unit that the GM had downgraded to accommodate the weaker party. Naturally, Black Hole and Supernova had no place here, so I would not have used them even if my character's Charisma was any better. My character was thus nothing more than a classless character with a +1 bonus to damage rolls and a measly 1 Resolve Point. We did our best, but the rolls turned against us.
Hmm. Again, yanking the melee unit off other PCs is an obvious use. Solar flare actually is useful if hitting AC is a problem. 2d6+1 (attunement bonus and attunement doesn't end until after using supernova) save for half isn't that much worse in a pinch when you really need to do damage.
Here is where the 1 Resolve truly screwed us over: both the solarian and the mystic went down, and it just so happened that the mystic was also down to 1 Resolve Point, because they spent it all earlier restoring Hit Points mid-battle via Healing Channel
Seriously, what was the party fighting? Something something downgraded doesn't tell us anything.
I imagine that we would have fared much more aptly with more fortunate dice luck, but that does not change the fact that the operative was performing at mediocre capacities outside of combat, that there were no good moments to actually use Black Hole and Supernova (never mind that my character had to have Charisma 10), and that low Resolve Points truly screw a party over.
Without knowing what the group was fighting and what the room was like, I can't accept these assertions. I see obvious uses for both powers, even if they aren't necessarily the most optimal in terms of damage. Mostly that it actually comes down to 'dice luck' tells me this isn't a good assessment of the class, or why this one class in particular needs to shoulder the blame.
Also, I see what confused me about the presence of an operative in this scenario.
If you are still set on playing a solarian after this, take a level in soldier (blitz) first. Trust me. The solarian was a disappointment.
There just isn't enough being said here for that conclusion. What were the skill challenges that the solarion (or anyone) couldn't contribute at all? What was happening in the fights (with.. whatever the enemy was) that a 'single melee unit' blew through 40 some hit points plus however many resolve points of healing via healing channel?
Now, I'm not saying the solarion is a good class, but this session doesn't really support making a cogent argument for that position. Or that the party failed because of lack of teamwork.
Though I will say... particularly at first level, I'm not sure starfinder requires a front-liner in a 'tank' role. The pregens are really packed together in terms of AC and SP/HP ranges, with the outliers being more about race than class. So for challenges for a 1st level party, I'm not sure 'front-lining it' is the most useful thing to build for.
Would not have helped here, seeing how the melee unit and the ranged unit kept themselves apart, much as our own melee unit and ranged units spread themselves out.
Yes... but one is a melee unit. By definition, it has to go where your characters are. That gives the party some influence over where it moves to (because it has to move to them to do anything)
Statistically, hitting KAC was not a problem. That was simply the result of an unfortunate series of rolls.
So, what would have been the result of statistically average rolls? That would actually tell us more about the performance of the classes.
Some sort of weak bear with a line attack flavored as a cybernetic augmentation, but I do not know what monster the GM was actually patterning this on.
Yeah, I don't know how 3 1st level starfinder PCs do against a 'weak cyber-bear.'
Obozaya, the soldier pre-gen is a blitz specialist. I'm not seeing anything that particularly jumps out as 'this is better against a bear of unknown CR and statistics.'
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So, what would have been the result of statistically average rolls? That would actually tell us more about the performance of the classes.The victories of the first party, probably.
So, a cakewalk? If average rolls rather than poor roles would have resulted in victory, that isn't much of a case for 'the solarion is terrible.' Just that dice were acting within the statistical margin of error.
Do not ask me what the CR was.
Well, ok. A meaningful evaluation is out, then.
The other party faced more difficult encounters (yes, even for their party size) and triumphed without a hitchy.
Because their dice rolls were better and they were built for the skill challenges? I assume there isn't a CR for these 'more difficult' encounters either.
Waiting three turns just for a Black Hole gambit, while in the near-useless graviton mode, would have hardly paid off even with higher Charisma.
+1 to damage rolls isn't exactly world-shaking either. Graviton might have helped dodging line attacks though.
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From what I can tell, you were trying to play a soldier using a the solarion class. It's clear that the solarion is not cut out for that playstyle. Best option would be high dex/cha armor build with operative melee weapon. You don't get hit, you hit reasonably often, and you can actually make use of your class abilities. It's not the most damaging build but it's not meant to be.