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Before the book is fully out I've been seeing a lot of speculation as to how the Solarion and the Envoy stack up, along with what's working and not, and I wanted to give a little input before we get into the fully swing of class comparison and the roles in Starfinder, especially since half the criticisms seem to be about how efficient of a murderbot classes are and aren't.
I tried running Pathfinder in space for a little over a year and one thing I want to urge people to remember is that the setting change is really relevant. Skill diversity matters as much if not more than skill strength due to the amount of situations that the characters end up needing skills. Even reducing the skill list and making skill ranks easier to come by and spread out there were still gaps left behind because everyone was operating on Pathfinder logic and bad times were had by all. Everyone tried to trick out their combat beasts and many failed to harbor some basic equipment or preparations to handle weird diverse alien monsters and the environment that will likely kill you if you blow up the wrong hull.
I think to further speculation in a useful way we really need to establish what the new paradigm is since we're working with a new setting. For example; diplomacy and social skills are great but maintaining relationships is a whole new level of importance due to corporate ties and increased communication, and in my case required a spreadsheet to keep track of.
I haven't fully absorbed the book so I'll have more meaningful things to say later but for now lets analyze the new status quo while looking at how the new classes and rules stack up so that we can approach the game for being Starfinder, not Pathfinder 2.0.
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The issue I have with so much of the mathcrafting right now is that it exists in a void without representative play experience to make sense. It's one thing to crunch numbers incessantly and an entirely different thing to see a party, fully composed, rise to those levels organically through a play experience.
The game isn't even out yet in an official capacity, and I haven't seen a book yet. I'm willing to admit that there are probably holes in the system which will need patching--that's standard with literally every game on the market. Starfinder will grow and evolve with community support, and serious math issues will come to be addressed in due time, and likely in a decisive manner.
But so much of the negative speculation regarding perceived balancing issues seems to exist largely in a vacuum without a recognition of how things look at a table. A problem represented by numbers and charts may not actually be what people think it will be. I think the solution is to note that, in theory, a problem exists, and that needs to be noted and shelved for after the game is out and after people have had an opportunity to play the system. Then, if the problem persists, we can unshelve what was mathcrafted and start talking significant revision.
I just have a hard time grokking these theoretical issues and desires to house rule entire classes before many players even sit down for their first game.
Before the book is fully out I've been seeing a lot of speculation as to how the Solarion and the Envoy stack up, along with what's working and not, and I wanted to give a little input before we get into the fully swing of class comparison and the roles in Starfinder, especially since half the criticisms seem to be about how efficient of a murderbot classes are and aren't.
It's not as much speculation as people actually reading the book.
Also, Operative outperforms Envoys in Diplomacy.
This sounds like a table variation issue rather than a game issue.
Maintaining relationships isn't a non-issue in PF or D&D, and given the larger pool in space, could very well be less important depending on how it is handled. They matter if the party is operating out of a base, and very much don't matter if the party is Star Trekkin' and won't come back to a system on their five year mission.
From comments from people with the pdf, it doesn't sound like personal weapons have even a vague chance of damaging starships, so blowing out the hull doesn't seem likely. Environment and supplies are pre-solved problems at level 1. Except for ammo and other battery charges.
Having a couple different classes (or at least one operative) seems to solve any skill diversity problems. Given the numbers being thrown about for DCs, skill strength is absolutely more of a problem as level increases.
especially since half the criticisms seem to be about how efficient of a murderbot classes are and aren't.
They aren't, actually. Most of the criticisms center around 'why is the operative so strong?' and 'what is the niche for envoys and solarions, and do they actually fill it in a competent fashion?'
Damage for everyone is pretty solidly 'burn two feats on longarms' and you'll be in the same ballpark, though not MVP.
Before the book is fully out I've been seeing a lot of speculation as to how the Solarion and the Envoy stack up, along with what's working and not, and I wanted to give a little input before we get into the fully swing of class comparison and the roles in Starfinder, especially since half the criticisms seem to be about how efficient of a murderbot classes are and aren't.It's not as much speculation as people actually reading the book.
Also, Operative outperforms Envoys in Diplomacy.
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Correct; it's technically called "White-room Theorycrafting." :D
I'm curious how the Operative outdoes the Envoy in Diplomacy? Are we talking some sort of "just straight bonuses due to some sort of doubled pluses talent" or is it some other special ability? There's "having more plusses" and then there's also having special abilities that add extra dimensions to social interaction rolls.
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Envoys from what I've seen are pretty decent at doing a few things they're supposed to but not everything they probably should. They're a good way of regaining stamina without spending resolve and they give an attack bonus which is useful since they're not easy to get as it stands at the moment, but they're only gonna be useful in the social role if you have an Operative who either doesn't take social skills when possible or chooses/agrees not to use them which isn't ideal. The Solarian can keep up pretty well in terms of damage and isn't terrible at defense but doesn't quite have what it takes to be the main front-liner in combat, and while they can do some crowd control, it's a bit too situational as it is and could do with a few more powerful options which we'll hopefully see soon down the line. The Operative themselves certainly seem to be the dominant class for most roles except for the front-line bullet sponge, but that fact almost makes them feel like a boring Mary Sue kind of class (at least in my opinion.) Overall I'd say they've done some pretty cool stuff so far and no one class is truly 'bad' but some classes definitely need some love and the high level math gets a little crazy.
So far my test envoy is basically a computer using C3PO mixed with Daniel Jackson. In combat I forewent the ability to be anywhere near useful in favor of being able to interact with just about any sentient life the party could encounter. I think the envoy has a wider ability to use skills than the operative and has more incentive to ignore combat ability altogether. My only regret is that the buffing abilities don't work through comms because going full scientist makes for a particularly useful red shirt so I want to stay on the ship as much as possible. But one thing to keep in mind is that if language, biology and culture are way more relevant for communication than with Pathfinder then just ranks in diplomacy isn't going to cut it.
Why?
For one thing, language, biology and culture are completely class agnostic.
Second, given that the assumed setting is multi-species, and diverse in a way that makes Star Trek look fairly conservative, I see no reason why they wouldn't all be comfortable dealing with each other as a trivial every day thing.
Third, I don't see anyway for the game mechanics to deal at all with culture or biology issues. (Languages just accrue with culture ranks, unless I misunderstood someone). Whatever you think those issues are- I'm not really sure what you're drawing on for your assumptions, let alone how they tie into classes.
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There's also the fact that most of it comes from mechanical stand-points, and they are valid points.
While I personally think a lot of it is premature and probably doesn't need to be quite so gung-ho with all the patching, it's a non-issue at my table, since we care way more about the story and the characters in roleplay than we do about whether or not one specific class is the best, or what mechanics we get, or what numbers we get to add to rolls.
To each table their own.
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There's also the fact that most of it comes from mechanical stand-points. While I think a lot of it is premature and probably doesn't need to be quite so gung-ho with all the patching, it's a non-issue at my table, since we care way more about the story and the characters in roleplay than we do about whether or not one specific class is the best.
Best is not a problem, functional is.
Solarians are non-functional frontliners unless you put on heavy armor, and that breaks the optics.
It's sort of how the Monk was viable in PF as long as you were an archer.
I don't need optimization, I need functionality.
And you can care about story without having to fudge rolls... if you have a functional system.
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That's fine, but we all find them perfectly functional, and no need to fudge rolls. There's always mechanical issues, with any game ever, since no design is perfect, but just as people will find them not functional, others will find them functional.
I'd say non-functional is an exaggeration. They're balanced for what they should be, which is a mix between front line fighting and crowd control. Their biggest issue is that their crowd control options are too situational or too expensive for what they do so they seem weak because a lot of the time they should be able to spend CCing is being spent fighting instead, making them seem weaker.
I'm not sure what you mean. Some of the DCs that people have been talking about are up around 70. And the bonuses seem to trail off in the 30s. So 20+30 != 70. That is just completely non-functional, with zero chance of ever being functional for anyone.
I'm not sure what you mean. Some of the DCs that people have been talking about are up around 70. And the bonuses seem to trail off in the 30s. So 20+30 != 70. That is just completely non-functional, with zero chance of ever being functional for anyone.
I'm talking about Solarians in combat? I don't see where the DCs come into how a Solarian hits things?
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I'd say non-functional is an exaggeration. They're balanced for what they should be, which is a mix between front line fighting and crowd control. Their biggest issue is that their crowd control options are too situational or too expensive for what they do so they seem weak because a lot of the time they should be able to spend CCing is being spent fighting instead, making them seem weaker.
I would find it really boring if CC was always obviously the best option. Trying to set up impressive uses of their abilities is much of the fun I foreseen in playing the class.
I'm not sure what you mean. Some of the DCs that people have been talking about are up around 70. And the bonuses seem to trail off in the 30s. So 20+30 != 70. That is just completely non-functional, with zero chance of ever being functional for anyone.I'm talking about Solarians in combat?
I'm not.
I was referring to the OP talking about skill strength as less important, and GameDesignGM referring to mechanical issues as a 'shrug' functional/nonfunctional depending on taste.
I'm not sure what you mean. Some of the DCs that people have been talking about are up around 70. And the bonuses seem to trail off in the 30s. So 20+30 != 70. That is just completely non-functional, with zero chance of ever being functional for anyone.I'm talking about Solarians in combat?I'm not.
I was referring to the OP talking about skill strength as less important, and GameDesignGM referring to mechanical issues as a 'shrug' functional/nonfunctional depending on taste.
My bad, been a long day. I definitely agree that it doesn't make sense that the DCs are so high, I hope that we're missing something here.
Why?
For one thing, language, biology and culture are completely class agnostic.
Second, given that the assumed setting is multi-species, and diverse in a way that makes Star Trek look fairly conservative, I see no reason why they wouldn't all be comfortable dealing with each other as a trivial every day thing.
Third, I don't see anyway for the game mechanics to deal at all with culture or biology issues. (Languages just accrue with culture ranks, unless I misunderstood someone). Whatever you think those issues are- I'm not really sure what you're drawing on for your assumptions, let alone how they tie into classes.
Envoy has several abilities that bypass anotomical and cultural barriers in communication, plus they learn more languages than anyone. There are a number of cultural, anotomical and language barriers that Pathfinder doesn't normally deal with.
In Absolom Station it would be an issue to deal with since there are a lot of undefined creatures noted as visitors. A number of places in the setting section barely have the ability to write and speak normally. If we one language per species and only those mentioned in the core book, there's bound to be half a dozen languages per campaign at best, not including races that don't really interact with the PC or long dead ones or extraplanar ones. More necessary if you travel to New planets.
I'd say non-functional is an exaggeration. They're balanced for what they should be, which is a mix between front line fighting and crowd control. Their biggest issue is that their crowd control options are too situational or too expensive for what they do so they seem weak because a lot of the time they should be able to spend CCing is being spent fighting instead, making them seem weaker.I would find it really boring if CC was always obviously the best option. Trying to set up impressive uses of their abilities is much of the fun I foreseen in playing the class.
I imagine they can do more than that but it feels like they're designed for utility tricks rather than straight up damage. CC is the best example I can think of on the top of my head but I'm sure they'll have other tricks.
I was speaking strictly about the classes. I agree the starship DC is a problem.
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People need to stop looking at the Envoy as another gun and a means of busting the math and making others better. Their ability to muddle numbers in the PCs favour far outweighs another underperforming attacker. I've brought this up in my thread about monster math, and someone else kindly crunched the numbers for me after I mentioned it.
In addition, they are the only class to grant another character an additional standard action. Which means more spells if cast on a spellcaster. More abilities. More...anything.
Any concerns with the envoy seem to be that it underperforms on its own. But nobody seems to care that it makes others actually good at what they do, and full attacking is not actually as good as people think it is UNLESS you have a character like the envoy making you more accurate. That -4/-6 is a lot harsher than it seems.
Speaking of which, Solarian straight up get higher accuracy with their full attacks. They charge as a standard action. They charge as a standard, no penalty, and can use move action revelations on top of that, or just move to get into a charge line. Their action economy is fine. In fact, it's great when combined with their other abilities. I'm pretty sure Stellar Rush is one of the most broken abilities in the game and without it, solarians would be having a much harder time.
Why?
For one thing, language, biology and culture are completely class agnostic.
Second, given that the assumed setting is multi-species, and diverse in a way that makes Star Trek look fairly conservative, I see no reason why they wouldn't all be comfortable dealing with each other as a trivial every day thing.
Third, I don't see anyway for the game mechanics to deal at all with culture or biology issues. (Languages just accrue with culture ranks, unless I misunderstood someone). Whatever you think those issues are- I'm not really sure what you're drawing on for your assumptions, let alone how they tie into classes.
Envoy has several abilities that bypass anotomical and cultural barriers in communication, plus they learn more languages than anyone. There are a number of cultural, anotomical and language barriers that Pathfinder doesn't normally deal with.
In Absolom Station it would be an issue to deal with since there are a lot of undefined creatures noted as visitors. A number of places in the setting section barely have the ability to write and speak normally. If we one language per species and only those mentioned in the core book, there's bound to be half a dozen languages per campaign at best, not including races that don't really interact with the PC or long dead ones or extraplanar ones. More necessary if you travel to New planets.
Share language is a first level spell, and I highly doubt it's the only communication gimmick in the setting. Solved.
Hmm, yep. Pregens: The level 4 envoy has a tier 2 computer with an artificial personality that can make social skill checks. Add some language software and isn't much of a problem.
Honestly, quite a few of the pregens have giant piles of languages, more than are even vaguely reasonable.
Quick pidgin is a xenoseeker thing, and 10 minutes allows basic communication with anyone. This does not sound like there are significant language barriers.
There's a difference between knowing what Gah is and knowing how to order the right kind.
People need to stop looking at the Envoy as another gun and a means of busting the math and making others better. Their ability to muddle numbers in the PCs favour far outweighs another underperforming attacker. I've brought this up in my thread about monster math, and someone else kindly crunched the numbers for me after I mentioned it.
In addition, they are the only class to grant another character an additional standard action. Which means more spells if cast on a spellcaster. More abilities. More...anything.
Any concerns with the envoy seem to be that it underperforms on its own. But nobody seems to care that it makes others actually good at what they do, and full attacking is not actually as good as people think it is UNLESS you have a character like the envoy making you more accurate. That -4/-6 is a lot harsher than it seems.
Speaking of which, Solarian straight up get higher accuracy with their full attacks. They charge as a standard action. They charge as a standard, no penalty, and can use move action revelations on top of that, or just move to get into a charge line. Their action economy is fine. In fact, it's great when combined with their other abilities. I'm pretty sure Stellar Rush is one of the most broken abilities in the game and without it, solarians would be having a much harder time.
This is exactly why I think Envoys and Solarians have issues. Improved Hurry and Stellar Rush are the linchpin of their builds. I want to improve the baseline so they are good additions but not their claim to fame.
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also Premature Speculations is my favorite Muse single
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There's a difference between knowing what Gah is and knowing how to order the right kind.
Great. But Starfinder characters don't need to eat, starting from first level. So that kind of cultural interaction disappears in snap of handwavium and magic.
Aside from battery charges and ammo, SF characters don't actually _have_ any needs.
On the language thing though, since magic and planar connections exist, even new races have a chance of being familiar with Inner/Outer planar languages. Aquan or Auran (or others) could be the best bet at galactic trade tongue.
Assuming you are meeting new aliens rather than colonizes from the Pact or Vesk, or Azlanti or swarms of omnivorous genocidal bugs.
In my experience in sci-fi settings, the situations characters end up in tend to be less centrally dependent on direct fighting ability. There is a lot more infiltration, and evasion of fights. Many potential fights, may actually be too powerful for most groups, with out using good tactics or force multipliers.
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This is exactly why I think Envoys and Solarians have issues. Improved Hurry and Stellar Rush are the linchpin of their builds. I want to improve the baseline so they are good additions but not their claim to fame.
Improved Hurry isn't a lynch pin of the Envoy build. Its nice, but not necessary.
A 6th level Envoy could any one of the following combos (which isn't even exhaustive):
Clever Attack (Standard Attack) + Improved Get 'Em (Move) is the +4 to hit a target party option.
Quick Dispiriting Taunt (Move) + Improved Get 'Em (Standard Attack) is +2 to your party's to hit and -2 to the enemy's to hit, saves, skills for those working with casters or Solarians.
Inspiring Boost (Standard) + Quick Dispiriting Taunt (Move) is the defensive healer option.
At 10th, they could start mixing and matching as the need arises.
It isn't just 1 power. The envoy class actually has a number of good options starting at 4th level and above. They may start out a little slow, but so do most of the classes.
As for the Solarian, I'd agree Solar Rush is certainly the strongest of the 2nd level powers. However, others do have their applications. You can't just say Radiation is bad without seeing it in play. A Quick Dispiriting Taunt from an Envoy + Radiation from a Solarian (no action to keep up in photon mode) is -4 to saves and to hit on that enemy. Making it all the more likely control powers stick.
A point people may be discounting is that the Solarian's DCs are based on the Solarian's level, not the power's level possible. That 2nd level control power has the same DC as the Solarian's 9th level Zenith power. This is not true of a Technomancer, where only their highest level spell has their strongest DC. A 20th level Solarian using Crush is going to have much better odds than a 20th level Technomancer using Hold Person.
Some of the abilities are pretty bad. Dark Matter for one is generally worse than equipment options or the Enhanced Resistance feat. Gravity Anchor strikes me as not so great either being only against combat maneuvers - a bit too specialized. However, many abilities are perfectly usable.
Do the classes have problems? Maybe. I don't claim to know everything, and I certainly haven't had enough play time with them.
But I haven't seen any convincing arguments yet that the Envoy and Solarian won't contribute to the party as well as any other class, and in many situations they will contribute far more to the party than other classes, based on the hard theoretical numbers I've looked at.
I've seen threads theory crafting without hard numbers, saying this or that is bad, and being compared back to Pathfinder concepts and values, which Starfinder is distinctly not. Statements like "3 resolve points at 1st level is not enough to be a front liner melee", without actually knowing how many RP will be used in a typical adventuring day. After Gen Con, people might have a better feel, given that the 1st level Solarian pregen has only 2 RP, and a number of others only have 3. After that, at least some people will have run those characters through a number of actual adventures and have some play experience they'll be able to pass on.
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And thus commences much chatter that sums up as, "I haven't actually played yet, but by the look of it..."
Point taken.
There's a difference between knowing what Gah is and knowing how to order the right kind.Great. But Starfinder characters don't need to eat, starting from first level. So that kind of cultural interaction disappears in snap of handwavium and magic.
Aside from battery charges and ammo, SF characters don't actually _have_ any needs.
On the language thing though, since magic and planar connections exist, even new races have a chance of being familiar with Inner/Outer planar languages. Aquan or Auran (or others) could be the best bet at galactic trade tongue.
Assuming you are meeting new aliens rather than colonizes from the Pact or Vesk, or Azlanti or swarms of omnivorous genocidal bugs.
That doesn't stop numerous languages from popping up not including anatomical limitations and cultural barriers mentioned in the book.
Plus the Envoy can quickly get up to date on the going on of wherever she's visiting. You know how insane that is for a scifi campaign? That's usually the very first thing each player did in my campaign each time they got to a new area so that they know just what tropes they're dealing with and whether or not something they would normally do would cause trouble.
If you just have the universe speak common, including the ones with no tongues and nobody has a culture that makes what you do, how you disguise, what you say, and what events you get involved with relevant at all then I guess the Envoy's ability to hack faster, understand bizzare creatures faster, get cultural knowledge and current event information faster, and know almost double the amount of languages anyone else can, is basically useless. At that point you might as well stick with one planet and crawl in a dungeon the whole campaign.
Although even without that the Envoy is the only one handing out straight plusses and negatives, which along with his buffing and debuffing is pretty good. Think about how much damage the Envoy is doing by not doing damage and it can get goofy especially since he can pass it off to other characters and a scary amount of abilities can be reduced to move actions. Elswhere I was seeing math where at level 13 the Envoy was doing about 12 damage but with three friends he basically added a total of 42 damage in the same amount of time bringing damage that was 'his' up to 54 on average.