I'm working on a geneticist class that has a pet and so naturally (heh) it's gonna be throwing around some class, teeth, and maybe a tentacle here and there. The problem I'm running into is how am I supposed to have my natural weapons scale with the characters level?
My first instinct was to have the damage scale at the same rate as the solarian solar weapon, but I don't want to step on that classes toes and I felt like that might end up as too much damage coming from the pet. Another option is to do like the pathfinder summoner and give it a bunch of attacks, but that seems to go against the design decisions they made for starfinder and it would bog combat down.
Do you guys have any suggestions for me? The second the first draft of the class is done it's going up here and I'm expecting the theory crafters to tear into it and I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.
Nah, it's fine. The solarian normally augments its damage with crystals, its base damage is equal to that of basic melee weapons - not a big deal for a pet to deal.
I think I'm gonna go with solarian damage but augment it with the option for different kinds of riders to reflect different types of natural weapons. Claws have bleed, a stinger injects poisons, tentacles make you flat footed or something. I think that coupled with a reduced penalty for full attacks or a Blitz Soldier like multihit charge could make for an interesting pet.
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If that is the direction you're going to go, I would suggest making sure both pet and PC have about a -4 to hit less than a soldier (I.e 3/4 BAB on both, and nothing that boosts to-hit). That way it's no more powerful than if someone was to do a full attack. Getting bonus actions is strong and needs to be carefully balanced - see original Summoner class...they did a nice job this time around with Mechanic.
I completely agree. The mechanic has been what I'm trying to balance off of. Thematically the class is gonna feel like a cross between pathfinder's summoner and alchemist.
What kind of effects could I tie to the natural attacks to give them more differentiation? The last thing I want is a lack variation in the pets, the idea being that you've designed it yourself on a genetic level.
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An easy/lazy way to balance it would be to say that you can apply Weapon Fusions to your Creature as if it were a weapon equal to your class level - You are extracting the magic from the Fusion and injecting it into your creation, in a procedure that costs the same as it would to apply the fusion to a weapon equal to your class level.
Then provide a list of Fusions that would make sense (i.e. no 'Returning' or 'Defiant' Fusions that affect the weapon itself, but Flaming/Axiomatic/Blasting could certainly make sense as flavorful mutations).
It would maintain the balance of the effects against each other, and also wouldn't be more of an overall increase in character power than a Mechanic who put the same Fusion on their Drone's weapon.
I think thats a cool idea, and one im probably going to steal, but I was wanting something that makes the natural weapons feel unique to the class. Just something slightly more unique than a generic weapon as an incentive to choose this class over the mechanic besides just flavor. Not to say that I'm trying to make something better than the mechanic, just better at different things. I'm finding it hard to carve out this niche.