|
I've just finished listening to episode 3 of the Rogue Exposure podcast where the party's Techmancer near single handedly mops the floor with the oppossition. Wielding a 4d6 Jolting Surge that he casts 4 times with a +2 bonus (if target has an electronic device, & who doesn't in Starfinder)...at 1st level & doesn't provoke an AoO. My 1st inclination was Power Gaming must be afoot for a 1st lvl character to inflict such obscene damage (36, 17, 20, 38 points of damage, 2 crits). Meanwhile the rest of the party are pew-pewing away with 1d4 laser pistols. No it wasn't power gaming, it's rules as written. So it must be that the designers intented the Technomancer to inflict absurd amounts of damage...& as stated in the show: Why would the player cast anything else? Seems Overpowered and gives my fair minded GM sense of game balance a headache.
My Operative character can shoot his azimuth laz pistol for 1d4 and IF (big IF, has failed most of the time) he can pull off a DC 20+ Trick attack then he is generously rewarded with an extra 1d4 damage. ...or just play a Technomancer & unload 4d6 damage with a greater chance of hitting and end the fight. We should all re-roll technomancers and everyone should use Jolting Surge. They made this spell too good.
Spells are limited per day, and you'll notice the damage never increases. It's fantastic at level 1, but drops off as you progress.
This is intended, spells now do the max damage they'll do at the first level you get them, but don't get any better. So amazing when you first get them, but around the time you get your next level of spells it isn't as high.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Those 4 castings are pretty much all the spells they can cast that day. So just like in Pathfinder, novaing makes characters with resources look better.
Also remember that Starfinder tries for a different flow of encounters per day. Everyone can heal to at least 50% without depending on the Mystic to heal them between encounters, and I get the sense that the devs expect more fights per day.
|
|
Still...@ 1st level...other characters are rocking their 1d4, 1d6 maybe 1d8 plus occassional circumstantial bonuses...& the technomancer does 4d6 & 4 castings is more than enough. At 1st level this seems to outclass other classes damage dealing potential by a large margin. Granted it may balance at higher lvls but starts absurdly imbalanced.
*nods*
Short rests give you back Stamina, but not spells.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Still...@ 1st level...other characters are rocking their 1d4, 1d6 maybe 1d8 plus occassional circumstantial bonuses...& the technomancer does 4d6 & 4 castings is more than enough. At 1st level this seems to outclass other classes damage dealing potential by a large margin. Granted it may balance at higher lvls but starts absurdly imbalanced.
Then you or the GM needs to rethink how they're doing encounters, since less than 4 enemies that aren't even higher CR per day doesn't really feel like much.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
4 castings is more than enough.
That heavily depends on your GM and encounters. If you're fighting a couple high-CR challenges and then sleeping, that Technomancer is gonna shine. If you're fighting 5 encounters of 6 low-CR goblins each (which is certainly possible given the new Resolve/Stamina Points mechanics described above) those spells are gonna run out pretty quickly, and mostly are going to overkill the NPCs anyway...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Operatives get Trick Attack, which should be going off 50% of the time or so. Solarians and Soldiers have a better BAB and can full attack for higher damage. Mechanics get two attacks a round with no penalty if they have a drone, or have full BAB and longarms and should be close behind. That leaves Mystics and Envoys, neither of which are primary damage classes.
The Technomancer who spams jolting surge four times in the first encounter is going to feel bad when everyone else tops off their Stamina and keeps going.
Reports I've seen place combat at about 25% longer than Pathdinder, so 4-5 rounds. Assuming 3- 4 encounters per day, and aid the spell lands 60-70% of the time it looks a lot less impressive.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
That technomancer rolled really well. Two crits and no misses in 4 hits is really good.
4d6 rolls on averages 14. There's only a 5-6% chance to roll a 20 or better on 4d6. 17 or higher is 25% or so. 36 or higher on 8d6 is about 6%, and 38 or higher on 8d6 is about 2.37%.
With that kind of a luck, a melee focused Soldier or Solarian could put out only slightly lower numbers. Imagine a soldier with a Doshko, dealing 1d12+4 damage. A crit is 2d12+8. A 5% roll for 2d12 is 21, so 29 damage. A 2% roll is 23, for a total of 31. The normal hits are like 10 and 12, for 14 and 16.
So with similar luck, the Soldier just did 29, 14, 16, and 31 damage. Except they can do that in the next fight as well, when the Technomancer is relegated to using 14 Dex with a 1d4 damage Azimuth pistol until they can sleep for 8 hours. At low levels the Technomancer bursts higher, but if you run into even two fights with 3 or 4 enemies each, they will run out.
If you're assuming doing 4d6 four times a day is enough to carry a character through a day of encounters you're doing something wrong. Although it's a great spell to reserve for strong singular opponents it'll likely overkill many multi character encounters. Additionally it's a melee attack which puts the Technomancer right in the fray and can indeed miss and when you miss with this attack it hurts a lot more than when I miss with my 1d8 rifle as a mechanic.
That technomancer rolled really well. (...)
Great post
|
That seems like some incredible rolling. 4d6 could also end up with a 4, though average is 14 damage, which is good, but not crazy good. A soldier with 18 str wielding a two handed melee weapon will do on average 17 damage with a full action attack where both attacks hit. So really what a technomancer is getting is a limited number of attacks with better accuracy and more swingy damage. They still have to move into melee to perform the attack, which isn't really where they want to be, and ranged weapons do have the advantage of being able to attack the enemy immediately, instead of having to approach the enemy first.
Of course, if you spend all four of your first level spell slots on Jolting Surge, then you're hosed later if you want to hack into a computer coded into a language you've never read before. Or want to modify your appearance to keep that street gang from running you down. Or want to put up a hologram to advertise your icon friend's next holophoner show.
So, there's tradeoffs.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Of course, if you spend all four of your first level spell slots on Jolting Surge, then you're hosed later if you want to hack into a computer coded into a language you've never read before. Or want to modify your appearance to keep that street gang from running you down. Or want to put up a hologram to advertise your icon friend's next holophoner show.
So, there's tradeoffs.
;_;
Was that 4d6 really that important?
|
|
Still...@ 1st level...other characters are rocking their 1d4, 1d6 maybe 1d8 plus occassional circumstantial bonuses...& the technomancer does 4d6 & 4 castings is more than enough. At 1st level this seems to outclass other classes damage dealing potential by a large margin. Granted it may balance at higher lvls but starts absurdly imbalanced.
Eh. Not only is it a limited resource, those damage rolls are all ridiculously high. Two crits in four rolls and both of the others really high as well.
Absent that kind of luck, a Technomancer is doing an average of 14 damage per Jolting Surge, and that only if it hits. Which is nice, but not super overpowering.
See, any turn they're not casting they do 1d4 damage per attack (average 2.5) while a Soldier is doing more like 1d10 damage per attack (average 6.5). And the Soldier's attack is better than the Technomancer's on all except the Jolting Surge stuff.
Over 10 rounds of combat and assuming base to-hit of +3 on the Technomancer and +4 on the Soldier (both vs. EAC 11 on ranged attacks), and a +0 Str modifier on the Technomancer for a total +2 to hit with the spell (also vs. EAC 11), the Soldier averages something a bit over 65 points of damage full attacking each round.
The Technomancer, meanwhile, averages damage from the Jolting Surges of just north of 33.6. And, from 6 rounds of full attacking a bit over 13.5 more. That totals somewhere right about 47.1 damage.
Now, that example favors the Soldier a bit in some ways (it assumes a Heavy Weapon and Full Attacks every round)...but it also assumes Dex 16 on both characters.
The Technomancer can do much better with Longarm Proficiency (he totals slightly more than 24.3 from full attacks and thus 57.9 or so after 10 rounds that way), but the Soldier is still ahead, and pulls ahead more very turn.
You won't actually get full attacks ever round, but you also won't have only 10 rounds of combat per day, and the point is that, over time, the Soldier wins out.
Those examples all ignore crits (too much math for something like this), but everyone has an equal chance of a crit, so that should be a wash (more or less).
Now, if both are melee characters with Str 16, the Technomancer looks better with +3 to hit to the Soldier's, +4 and doing 1d6+3 to the Soldier's 1d8+3 (both vs. KAC 13), but that still means that, over 10 rounds full attacking the soldier deals 60 damage (sans crits), while the Technomancer averages 42 from Jolting Surge and 27.3 from attacks, for a total of 69.3, which is a lot better, comparison-wise, but still not an overpowering advantage.
and you make that 17 rounds and that goes to 102 for the Soldier and 101.15 for the Technomancer, and goes down a bit for the Technomancer every additional turn from there.
That example looks a lot better on damage (17 rounds of full attacks is definitely starting to hit the point where you might not see that in a day)...but Technomancer is the most fragile class in the game, making taking them into melee a hell of a risk, and the Soldier can afford an 18 attack stat better than the Technomancer.
Now that's a melee touch spell. Did the DM take all 4 attacks of opportunity, and did they all miss? Cause if even one hit the spell should've been lost
Jolting surge doesn't provoke.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Note that with jolting surge you have to be right up next to some bad thing, and if you count the chance of missing (about 50% for a 1st level technomancer targeting a non-minion bad thing), the expected damage per spell is about 7 points electrical. Magic missile, also a 1st level spell, has a 0% chance of missing, and so its expected damage per spell is 10.5, and you can cast it while far away from the bad thing. I'd go magic missile over jolting surge.
You know, when I read the thread title, I assumed that the OP was going to complain that jolting surge is too weak...
You could instead cast Magic missile to deal 3d4+3 damage (avg 10, 4 lower then jolting surge) from 110 ft away, with no chance to miss.
You could cast Supercharge Weapon on your solider buddy's rifle to deal the same damage at range with a higher attack bonus.
Jolting surge should probably deal a bit more damage or inflict a condition or something like that.
Note that with jolting surge you have to be right up next to some bad thing, and if you count the chance of missing (about 50% for a 1st level technomancer targeting a non-minion bad thing), the expected damage per spell is about 7 points electrical. Magic missile, also a 1st level spell, has a 0% chance of missing, and so its expected damage per spell is 10.5, and you can cast it while far away from the bad thing. I'd go magic missile over jolting surge.
I'd take neither. They go obsolete really fast, and never scale, which makes them rather bad after just a few levels.
Being able to one shot a goblin at level one is... nice. But mostly it sets the player up for disappointment when that no longer matters, and just pulling a gun and blasting is superior in terms of resource expenditure and actually contributing with your actions.
Note that with jolting surge you have to be right up next to some bad thing, and if you count the chance of missing (about 50% for a 1st level technomancer targeting a non-minion bad thing), the expected damage per spell is about 7 points electrical. Magic missile, also a 1st level spell, has a 0% chance of missing, and so its expected damage per spell is 10.5, and you can cast it while far away from the bad thing. I'd go magic missile over jolting surge.
I'd take neither. They go obsolete really fast, and never scale, which makes them rather bad after just a few levels.
Being able to one shot a goblin at level one is... nice. But mostly it sets the player up for disappointment when that no longer matters, and just pulling a gun and blasting is superior in terms of resource expenditure and actually contributing with your actions.
Well... That way of putting it makes me think...
I've ended up having my 1st level Technomancer have the Supercharge Weapon spell and Hold Person... I know Hold Person isn't a great choice for 1st level, but give it a few levels and then if you're lucky you can hold someone in place for several rounds, and then have the rest of your team beat them down in a way they can't fight back.
... Unless I missed something in Hold Person, such as if hitting them would dismiss the spell... But even if that were the case, its still good for taking someone out of the fight until the rest of the mooks are taken out. If the boss is something like a Soldier, that's an obvious target for Hold Person.
(Aside: Makes me consider a possibility of a battle where not only is the boss a Soldier, but they're accompanied by lower level CC mages. Meaning that the Soldier is just the guy who takes out the helpless party. Otherwise, I do ponder that if a bunch of Technomancers all cast Supercharge Weapon on a single Soldier's gun, would it stack?)
Huh? Hold person is a second level mystic spell. How did you get hold person as a 1st level technomancer spell?
Huh? Hold person is a second level mystic spell. How did you get hold person as a 1st level technomancer spell?
Huh... Whoops...
I probably misread something... Or assumed something was still working on Pathfinder scaling.
... Guess I need to find another spell then.
Note that with jolting surge you have to be right up next to some bad thing, and if you count the chance of missing (about 50% for a 1st level technomancer targeting a non-minion bad thing), the expected damage per spell is about 7 points electrical. Magic missile, also a 1st level spell, has a 0% chance of missing, and so its expected damage per spell is 10.5, and you can cast it while far away from the bad thing. I'd go magic missile over jolting surge.
I'd take neither. They go obsolete really fast, and never scale, which makes them rather bad after just a few levels.
Being able to one shot a goblin at level one is... nice. But mostly it sets the player up for disappointment when that no longer matters, and just pulling a gun and blasting is superior in terms of resource expenditure and actually contributing with your actions.
Auto 10.5 damage is useful for a while because as the awesomeness of 10.5 damage wanes, 1st level slots become a less limited resource. But should a technomancer decide that they have a better option for a 1st level spell known, they can swap it out any time that they gain a level.
Huh? Hold person is a second level mystic spell. How did you get hold person as a 1st level technomancer spell?Huh... Whoops...
I probably misread something... Or assumed something was still working on Pathfinder scaling.
... Guess I need to find another spell then.
You probably misread Hold PORTAL.
Oh this isn't a thread complaining about how much damage it does but one complaining about how much damage it does.