Weirdest thing I've noticed is that the Solarion can't switch their mote from weapon to armor. For a class so focused on versatility in combat, this is strange to me, and something I intend to house rule away.
A nearly disintegrated suit of armor still provides 100% environmental protection, even against the vacuum of space or the harshest of hot/cold environs. So long as it doesn't have the destroyed condition.
One thing to note on this the book mentioned basic force fields used on some armor as backup in case of puncture. If that can stop pressure and air loss it should be good for a while protection wise.
And assuming you go out for coffee wearing heavy assault armor.Right at the back in the settings section, regarding personal comms:
Small enough to be carried in a pocket, they also come automatically integrated into all armor of 1st level or higher.So you don't actually need to buy one (assuming you have armour).Of course. People always wear armor, never take it off (even for sleeping or sex), and never have any other items of clothing. Also, they never take the time to wash.
Just look at the thread for starting equipment. Look at how many people didn't pick up an extra pair of clothes.
If RAW = no penalty, then why leave space without it?
No doubt this will get FAQ'd and then a new Feat will appear: Armor All or a "back door" enhancement to the armor.
RAW there is not a stated penalty for not having a shower ever.There's not a stated penalty for not peeing ever. And so on.
However, this is still supposed to be a roleplaying game.
Weirdest thing I've noticed is that the Solarion can't switch their mote from weapon to armor. For a class so focused on versatility in combat, this is strange to me, and something I intend to house rule away.
I'm thinking about letting them have *both*. It's not really a big issue, imho, as most weapon solarians are STR based instead of DEX based, and armor isn't really that good if you don't invest heavy on DEX. In any case, I envision solarians more as light armor guys than as heavy armor guys (although heavy armor guys are also a possibility, of course), so I think I'd let them have both. Will need to check a bit more for balance issues, but I don't expect it to break anything.
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The "sameness" of NPC armor/hit point/accuracy/damage can lead to some quirky results. For example, it is just as difficult to hit a CR 3 goblin as a C3 ogre. That doesn't make a lot of sense.[/list]
But what makes the most sense in the specific scenario of AC comparison between a CR 3 goblin and a CR 3 ogre?
1. The CR 3 goblin has a higher AC than the same CR ogre because the goblin is a much smaller target, has a higher Dexterity, and is a far better dodger, or
2. The CR 3 ogre has a higher AC than the goblin because the ogre is tougher, thicker-skinned, and wears heavier and more effective armor (ostensibly allowing it to ignore most direct small arms and laser fire that isn't well aimed to hit vulnerable spots), or
3. Both the CR 3 goblin and CR 3 ogre have approximately the same AC (for different reasons) because CR 3 enemies are as approximately as challenging as each other by definition.
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The "sameness" of NPC armor/hit point/accuracy/damage can lead to some quirky results. For example, it is just as difficult to hit a CR 3 goblin as a C3 ogre. That doesn't make a lot of sense.[/list]
But what makes the most sense in the specific scenario of AC comparison between a CR 3 goblin and a CR 3 ogre?
1. The CR 3 goblin has a higher AC than the same CR ogre because the goblin is a much smaller target, has a higher Dexterity, and is a far better dodger, or
2. The CR 3 ogre has a higher AC than the goblin because the ogre is tougher, thicker-skinned, and wears heavier and more effective armor (ostensibly allowing it to ignore most direct small arms and laser fire that isn't well aimed to hit vulnerable spots), or
3. Both the CR 3 goblin and CR 3 ogre have approximately the same AC (for different reasons) because CR 3 enemies are as approximately as challenging as each other by definition.
It's also very possible that a CR 3 goblin and a CR 3 ogre will, in fact, not have quite the same AC. We know that monster creation involves adding templates for things like race, and some of those might easily include AC (one in Incident At Absalom Station includes a +2 ranged attack bonus). Also, NPCs appear to be divided into Combat, Expert, and Spellcaster roles. If you make the goblin an Expert and the Ogre Combat, that might have some notable effects on their respective AC.
Their ACs will likely be very close, but that would've been true in Pathfinder, too. Speaking of which, a level 4 Goblin Rogue in Leather Armor (ie: a CR 3 goblin in Pathfinder) has AC 18. That's only one point higher than the CR 3 Ogre's 17. And if you improve both their armors to the best available in their category (Studded Leather and a Breastplate respectively), they both have AC 19.
The rule quirk I found is the way weapons are organized and scale I find notoriously silly.
However, I still plan to just roll with it. There is noting harmful about it.
The whole "Captain rolls are CHA based" strikes me as weird. Charisma seems the least-relevant stat for commanding a spaceship in battle.
Personally, I'd much rather have a gruff, grizzled old spacer who knows ship combat backwards and forwards giving the orders, rather than someone who gives inspiring speeches.
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The whole "Captain rolls are CHA based" strikes me as weird. Charisma seems the least-relevant stat for commanding a spaceship in battle.
Personally, I'd much rather have a gruff, grizzled old spacer who knows ship combat backwards and forwards giving the orders, rather than someone who gives inspiring speeches.
You mean like the kind of guy who would have a high Intimidate check?
More a guy who can quote you chapter & verse of any tactical manual you can name, for any situation has an anecdote about how this opponent must've trained with the Vesk, "'Cause the Vesk used tactics just like this in the Silent War. Third Battle of Triaxus in '78." All the inspiration or intimidation in the world aren't worth a lot if someone doesn't know where the ship needs to be and when it needs to be there. If you're in a tactically disadvantageous position, you're screwed no matter how inspired you are.
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Right, but you don't reach command by being a grizzled veteran, you reach command by being tactically passable and able to effectively communicate yourself. It's as much about making yourself understood as knowing what to do.
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My favorite rules quirk that I've heard about so far is the Shuttle Bay in the starship building section. A Shuttle Bay takes two expansion bays and can hold a size Small or larger ship. BUT, both Small size ships (Shuttle and Light Freighter) have three expansion bays. You can put a ship inside of your ship and actually increase the amount of storage you have!
The rules do specify that a Shuttle Bay can only be added to Huge or larger ships, so it's impossible to go infinite with it.
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I've worked with many old grizzled veterans (computer admins and developers, though quite a few were actual war vets) who knew their stuff but were terrible at commanding a team, because they knew how to do it themselves rather than imparting that capability to others.
The best were grognards who also knew how to inspire confidence and give commanding orders (in other words, above average Charisma).
In other words, Picard was a far better commander than Kirk. :)
(Cue phaser fire in 3... 2... 1...)
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My favorite rules quirk that I've heard about so far is the Shuttle Bay in the starship building section. A Shuttle Bay takes two expansion bays and can hold a size Small or larger ship. BUT, both Small size ships (Shuttle and Light Freighter) have three expansion bays. You can put a ship inside of your ship and actually increase the amount of storage you have!
The rules do specify that a Shuttle Bay can only be added to Huge or larger ships, so it's impossible to go infinite with it.
The SS Matryoshka will get all the cargo you need to its destination. All of it.
But combat is generally not the main role of a mechanic or envoy.Combat is sort of a necessity for everyone. And thus highly relevant.
You're dodging my point. Combat is the primary role of a solarian and their key ability score is totally unrelated to combat. That's the issue.
Even for a combat mechanic or envoy, their key ability score is still an integral part of their class role and abilities. This isn't the case for a solarian.It isn't? In the case of Mechanic all they get from Int is a bonus to skills like everyone else. Envoy admittedly gets more from Cha, but so does Solarian. Envoy admittedly gets more but not a whole lot more.
The envoy's main contribution involve skills and many special abilities that use Charisma-based skills. You're wrong about the mechanic not getting much from Intelligence -- they have many primary class features that directly scale off of Intelligence and Intelligence is integral to their role as a tech-based skill monkey. All Charisma does for a solarian is increase a select amount of optional abilities.
Charisma doesn't do anything for a solarian except raise their saving throw DCs. However, most solarian abilities with saves are just save-or-suck crowd control powers that are not an integral part of being a solarian. So the solarian ends up with a key ability score that is NOT central to the class.Eh. Save DCs seem relevant to me, as do social skills. Being good at those is nice.
"Nice" but not what the class is all about. And almost all of those abilities conflict with their ability to fight (the main role of the class) due to action economy.
In other words, Picard was a far better commander than Kirk. :)
(Cue phaser fire in 3... 2... 1...)
Fire all phasers and lay down a full spread of photon torpedoes!
I don't actually disagree, but it seemed obligatory.
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I've worked with many old grizzled veterans (computer admins and developers, though quite a few were actual war vets) who knew their stuff but were terrible at commanding a team, because they knew how to do it themselves rather than imparting that capability to others.
The best were grognards who also knew how to inspire confidence and give commanding orders (in other words, above average Charisma).
In other words, Picard was a far better commander than Kirk. :)
(Cue phaser fire in 3... 2... 1...)
Which os why you put someone inspirational like Steve Jobs directing a bunch of grizzled veterans and know-it-all smart geniuses that are actually more intelligebt and well versed as engineers.
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More a guy who can quote you chapter & verse of any tactical manual you can name, for any situation has an anecdote about how this opponent must've trained with the Vesk, "'Cause the Vesk used tactics just like this in the Silent War. Third Battle of Triaxus in '78." All the inspiration or intimidation in the world aren't worth a lot if someone doesn't know where the ship needs to be and when it needs to be there. If you're in a tactically disadvantageous position, you're screwed no matter how inspired you are.
That sounds like a great tactical officer. Not necessarily a great CO.
The CO's job is to lead and to manage. Charisma is general people skills, and that's not just making speeches. Coordinating people is also a people skill.
The tactical officer's job is to know about tactics than the captain. The chief engineer's job is to know more about propulsion systems than the captain. The comms officer's job is to know more about comms than the captain.
The captain's job is to have sufficient general familiarity with the operation of the ship and fleet to speak intelligently with all of these specialists, take the small picture input of all of these specialists who know what they're saying in greater depth than the captain does, and determine all of its place in the big picture in order to come to a directive that will then be passed down to the crew and refined by all of these specialists (or refined and directly executed by these specialists, on smaller crews).
While technical competence is necessary, it is primarily a skill of cooperation, communication, and management over technical expertise.
Having someone else specialize in tactics is fine at the operational level, but on the bridge in combat, the Captain isn't likely to have time to get the Tac Officer to draw up a plan. He needs to know what orders to issue. When you're out of combat, sure, it's nice to have a charismatic CO who motivates people to overachieve. When lives are on the line the CO shouldn't have to motivate anyone. Incoming fire is a great motivator. He does need to know where to put the ship, which enemy to shoot first, etc., not stop and check with the staff.
It may be a matter of perspective. I'm in the army. When the Lieutenant Colonel is drawing up a Battalion-level OPORD, there's time to have the S2(Intel) write the Situation paragraph, the S3(Ops) write the Execution paragraph, and the S4(Supply) write the Service Support paragraph. When my platoon's under fire, I don't want my LT having to stop and ask the PSG whether to assault through, break contact, or set up a base of fire and call the company CO for reinforcement. I see a ship in combat as more like the latter, because there's shooting going on right now. Maybe others are seeing the Captain as closer to a Battalion commander because of the size of the crew.
Honestly, the captain of a ship's actual involvement in live combat is pretty minimal. Their job is to get the crew to a point where they can fight effectively. Pretty much all the actual jobs are already farmed out.
Also, understanding the strengths and aptitudes of your team falls under charisma. It's a people skill.
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You're dodging my point. Combat is the primary role of a solarian and their key ability score is totally unrelated to combat. That's the issue.
So you're comparing it to, what, Soldier then? Solarian is more combat oriented than most Classes, but less so than Soldier, as demonstrated by their non-combat skill bonuses and available utility Revelations, like Hypnotic Glow.
I think a less combative primary stat than Soldier makes good sense.
The envoy's main contribution involve skills and many special abilities that use Charisma-based skills.
Some, yeah, but attacks are also important to them. Honestly, having a better Dex or Str than Cha is a very valid build, and much better in combat than the Cha 18 option.
You're wrong about the mechanic not getting much from Intelligence -- they have many primary class features that directly scale off of Intelligence and Intelligence is integral to their role as a tech-based skill monkey. All Charisma does for a solarian is increase a select amount of optional abilities.
What I said is they get nothing but skills (which are awesome), not nothing. That's technically not true, Overload and Override also have saves based on it. But there's basically nothing else. And those are a bit niche.
"Nice" but not what the class is all about. And almost all of those abilities conflict with their ability to fight (the main role of the class) due to action economy.
Uh...I was mostly talking non-combat situations. Which don't impact action economy in combat at all.
You're dodging my point. Combat is the primary role of a solarian and their key ability score is totally unrelated to combat. That's the issue.So you're comparing it to, what, Soldier then? Solarian is more combat oriented than most Classes, but less so than Soldier, as demonstrated by their non-combat skill bonuses and available utility Revelations, like Hypnotic Glow.
I think a less combative primary stat than Soldier makes good sense.
How does that make any sense? Even though the Solarian is less combat-oriented, combat is still their primary contribution to a party. It doesn't make sense to give them a key ability score that doesn't align with their primary role.
The envoy's main contribution involve skills and many special abilities that use Charisma-based skills.Some, yeah, but attacks are also important to them. Honestly, having a better Dex or Str than Cha is a very valid build, and much better in combat than the Cha 18 option.
Solarians don't have such an option. Aside from getting extra class skills, the class gets no ability that augments or utilizes skills. The only abilities they start with that use Charisma are supernova and blackhole, which can't be used until after 3 rounds of combat. There's absolutely nothing incentivizing a solarian from making Charisma their highest ability score. The solarian is designed in such a way that its key ability score will always be secondary. That's not a good thing.
You're wrong about the mechanic not getting much from Intelligence -- they have many primary class features that directly scale off of Intelligence and Intelligence is integral to their role as a tech-based skill monkey. All Charisma does for a solarian is increase a select amount of optional abilities.What I said is they get nothing but skills (which are awesome), not nothing. That's technically not true, Overload and Override also have saves based on it. But there's basically nothing else. And those are a bit niche.
Those are primary class features and they have several abilities that interact with Intelligence-based skill checks. Some mechanic tricks scale off of Intelligence as well. What primary class feature that a solarian gets that uses Charisma or a Charisma-based skill? Nothing.
"Nice" but not what the class is all about. And almost all of those abilities conflict with their ability to fight (the main role of the class) due to action economy.Uh...I was mostly talking non-combat situations. Which don't impact action economy in combat at all.
Like what? ALmost all of those abilities (especially the ones that allow saving throws) either don't work in combat or would be useless outside of combat.
You could... just have fewer resolve points. Or take the feat that gives you more. Spend one feat and have charisma 12, and you have as much resolve as someone with charisma 16. It's not like the books are bulging with useful feats yet.
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Have to agree with Omnius. If you're so certain that none of their abilities worth having use cha then don't take it. They have a fairly low number of abilities that use resolve compared to others, and there a feat for more if you want. Personally I think that a bit of Cha is nice and when looking at some of their abilities like sidereal worth having a few points in. It may seem to differ from how the others look at first glance, but if nothing else there's certainly a history of mystic martial characters using a non physical stat for things like this does. And my group is finding that Starfinder lends itself to mold breaking. That soldier across from you might be swinging a fangblade, hefting some heavy weapons, or they might very well be your medic(seen a quiet reasonable build for one, healing the party and debufing the foes). No reason the solarion has to put all their points in str, particularly with the quickly diminishing returns.
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A Solarians role is not just combat. At least not just combat damage dealer.
They have access to a large number of skills.
The fact that Charisma is a key skill means they're likely to be good at social skills.
They have a number of abilities to support the party, not just deal damage.
I've seen them built to be scouts
I've seen them built to be a good captain (diplomacy or bluff)
We've all seen the combat monster using the energy weapon.
Solarian is the class that fills the gaps.
Don't like envoys but hope to succeed socially as a party? I'll play Solarian
Need extra damage output? I'll play a Solarian
Could use some help in buff/debuff area? I'll play a Solarian
For me it's a better fit than most of the other classes, because it can do well in combat and out of combat.
Mechanics and envoys don't necessarily match that criteria!
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How does that make any sense? Even though the Solarian is less combat-oriented, combat is still their primary contribution to a party. It doesn't make sense to give them a key ability score that doesn't align with their primary role.
It might. It sorta depends on what you mean by 'makes sense'. And in any party without an Envoy or Operative who's gone Spy, the Solarian is likely to be the best at Cha based stuff by quite a bit, especially as levels go up, so that debatably is one of their primary roles in many parties.
Solarians don't have such an option. Aside from getting extra class skills, the class gets no ability that augments or utilizes skills. The only abilities they start with that use Charisma are supernova and blackhole, which can't be used until after 3 rounds of combat. There's absolutely nothing incentivizing a solarian from making Charisma their highest ability score. The solarian is designed in such a way that its key ability score will always be secondary. That's not a good thing.
It's not a good thing from an absolute power basis, no. It might well be good game design given some of the additional benefits Solarian receives as opposed to Soldiers and some other Classes. Solarian is the highest DPR class in the game even with lower Str than a Soldier, for example. The use of suboptimal primary stats as a balance measure on more powerful classes strikes me as interesting conceptually, useful mechanically, and quite possibly properly applied here.
Those are primary class features and they have several abilities that interact with Intelligence-based skill checks. Some mechanic tricks scale off of Intelligence as well. What primary class feature that a solarian gets that uses Charisma or a Charisma-based skill? Nothing.
Which Mechanic tricks are those? And yeah, Mechanics do get benefits from Int, but not a lot more than most people get from it in most cases, it's just a good stat for everyone.
Solarian, likewise, get some benefits from Cha (Save DCs), but mostly only the ones other people get (being good at social skills). Cha in a vacuum is just not as good a stat as Int in a vacuum.
Like what? ALmost all of those abilities (especially the ones that allow saving throws) either don't work in combat or would be useless outside of combat.
Hypnotic Glow is literally an at-will Jedi Mind Trick, which is awesome. Gravity Boost makes you a parkour master, which is cool. Astrologic Sense is very nice. Stealth Warp plus Sidereal Influence can make you better at Stealth than anyone else in the game (yes, even Operative) if going ranged and thus high Dex...you move slower, but it's still great. Defy Gravity also has a few utility uses.
Admittedly, Hypnotic Glow is the only one that makes extensive use of Charisma, but my point was that they have a lot more non-combat focus than Soldiers, and I think these provide evidence of that.
The lack of an observed clause in the stealth rules leads to some wonkiness, like if you have cover you should use your move action to stealth pretty much every time.
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The dual wielding rules being so weak. Getting a situational +1 to hit from spending double on your weapons doesn't seem worth it, and not getting any advantage from using 2 non operative weapons crushed my hopes of making a character based on an awesome model with 2 cyber katanas :)
Yeah I'm kind of hopeing well get some more feats revolving around two weapons maybe something defensive. also I could see a feat that gives an attack a bonus die or something when using two of the same weapon at once.
Having someone else specialize in tactics is fine at the operational level, but on the bridge in combat, the Captain isn't likely to have time to get the Tac Officer to draw up a plan. He needs to know what orders to issue. When you're out of combat, sure, it's nice to have a charismatic CO who motivates people to overachieve. When lives are on the line the CO shouldn't have to motivate anyone. Incoming fire is a great motivator. He does need to know where to put the ship, which enemy to shoot first, etc., not stop and check with the staff.
It may be a matter of perspective. I'm in the army. When the Lieutenant Colonel is drawing up a Battalion-level OPORD, there's time to have the S2(Intel) write the Situation paragraph, the S3(Ops) write the Execution paragraph, and the S4(Supply) write the Service Support paragraph. When my platoon's under fire, I don't want my LT having to stop and ask the PSG whether to assault through, break contact, or set up a base of fire and call the company CO for reinforcement. I see a ship in combat as more like the latter, because there's shooting going on right now. Maybe others are seeing the Captain as closer to a Battalion commander because of the size of the crew.
It IS a matter of perspective yes. Namely, these aren't military vessels, there's no rules for insubordination/mutiny, and all the roles you think a captain should be doing in the first paragraph: deciding where to go, what to shoot, etc, are handled by other people. They really are, in SF space combat rules, comm officers and coordinators, not commanders. If you think they shouldn't be, that's fair, but that's how the roles are set up. Honestly in a cooperative RPG game that's how I'd prefer it anyways.
Edit: actually, after rereading the combat rules, you actually can play a captain that is SUPER good at individual roles but not necessarily a great motivator. Simply use the Orders and Encourage abilities as often as possible. RP Encourage less "as you can do it!" and more telling them exactly what to do and how to do it.
A lot of skills feel like they were undeveloped with what they do. While many list 2-3 things, others have only a single one.
Profession is also odd that it doesn't scale right. At level 1, it gives a decent little bit of spare change but the rate it increases is static (A set amount per point) while wealth by level scales exponentially. So while at level 1, a little profession could be handy by the time you've hit 10 the amount of money you make is not even worth writing on your sheet because you don't buy stuff in the scale of 10s.
My biggest irk though is the complete lack of any non-combat stuff for the Soldier. It's the sole class with no skill boosts/non-combat tricks.
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My biggest irk though is the complete lack of any non-combat stuff for the Soldier. It's the sole class with no skill boosts/non-combat tricks.
The Soldier's out-of-combat trick (if you want one) is Skill Focus and Skill Synergy. With their combat Feats taken care of in-class, they can easily afford a Skill Focus or two and a Skill Synergy to go along with them.
Why is this not baked in? Honestly, I suspect some people don't want to 'waste' resources on non-combat stuff, and that should probably be an option since skill-ups aren't essential to Soldier's theme the way they are to many other Classes.
An additional possible solution if you're amenable to House Rules is to have a Gear Boost for 'Utility Gear' that gives a Mechanic/Operative level Insight bonus on one skill of your choice associated with one piece of gear of your choice. That's easily added and seems balanced.
My biggest irk though is the complete lack of any non-combat stuff for the Soldier. It's the sole class with no skill boosts/non-combat tricks.The Soldier's out-of-combat trick (if you want one) is Skill Focus and Skill Synergy. With their combat Feats taken care of in-class, they can easily afford a Skill Focus or two and a Skill Synergy to go along with them.
Why is this not baked in? Honestly, I suspect some people don't want to 'waste' resources on non-combat stuff, and that should probably be an option since skill-ups aren't essential to Soldier's theme the way they are to many other Classes.
An additional possible solution if you're amenable to House Rules is to have a Gear Boost for 'Utility Gear' that gives a Mechanic/Operative level Insight bonus on one skill of your choice associated with one piece of gear of your choice. That's easily added and seems balanced.
They're also the only class that isn't severely screwed over by taking an Archetype.
They're also the only class that isn't severely screwed over by taking an Archetype.
Yeah, they're trying to make the prestige class work with Pathfinder's approach to classes actually get things as they level up, but the archetypes are just awful. I'd say even the soldier loses in that bargain.
I predict that when it's all said and done, there will be a couple archetypes that are absolutely must-take for specific classes because they're so amazing, and every single other one will be stamped, "Never take this."
They're also the only class that isn't severely screwed over by taking an Archetype.Yeah, they're trying to make the prestige class work with Pathfinder's approach to classes actually get things as they level up, but the archetypes are just awful. I'd say even the soldier loses in that bargain.
I predict that when it's all said and done, there will be a couple archetypes that are absolutely must-take for specific classes because they're so amazing, and every single other one will be stamped, "Never take this."
Which is pretty much every Archetype for the Solarions. I don't want to lose half my Revelations and Zenith Revelations ;_;
I hope later Archetypes follow a different schema for trading abilities out.
They're also the only class that isn't severely screwed over by taking an Archetype.
It really is more an indictment of the archetype system than a blessing to the Soldier. The Soldier gets the least unique 'Special thing' (More feats are nice but you already get feats by being a character) so they lose the least from archetypes.
I sorta feel like it should have worked by being something you take and it replaces a chunk of your feat progression (Like Variant Multiclassing in pathfinder) rather than most of your classes' shiny unique things.
Yuuuuuuus, I would love for it to work like VMC, which is why it only seems good to a Soldier, unlike the other classes they are not losing anything unique.
All it does is replace a class' shiny unique things with some other shiny unique thing. The Archetypes aren't bad, they just don't fit in with a certain image of the class and/or an optimized version, and therefore people think they're bad.
If you focus on things other than combat and numbers, the archetypes become much more appealing. People who enjoy the numbers aspect of the game more than anything else won't enjoy the archetypes. People who enjoy other aspects, such as playing the role or doing character development on a story-based or emotional scale will enjoy the archetypes. People who enjoy both will have to decide where their preferences lie when the play the archetypes.
If your the type who focuses on things other than mechanics, then there is no reason to take the archetype to begin with since you can refluff characters without needing to take an archetype.
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While I'm still skimming the PDF, I do have two major irritations.
1. NPCs not built on same principles as PCs.
Yeah I know it makes the game much more manageable, but my suspension of disbelief shattered faster than the speed of light when I learned about it. If the nightmarish event of a PC style statblock "transforming" into an NPC style one ever happens in an adventure path... (shudders in fear of going amok)
I have a similar issue with this. One of the things I like about Pathfinder's NPCs is how easy it is to understand how they were built, which in turn helps in understanding the game and its mechanics. It also has the nice additional perk that I can more readily swap out feats to suit my own campaigns. With Starfinder, we can't see how the NPCs are built, which impedes both points.
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I have a similar issue with this. One of the things I like about Pathfinder's NPCs is how easy it is to understand how they were built, which in turn helps in understanding the game and its mechanics. It also has the nice additional perk that I can more readily swap out feats to suit my own campaigns. With Starfinder, we can't see how the NPCs are built, which impedes both points.
All evidence suggests that Alien Archive will provide an NPC creation system that will allow the understanding of how they were built very, very, thoroughly. How it will interact with Feats is an interesting question, and one we'll have to wait to see, but even that might be very possible.
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All it does is replace a class' shiny unique things with some other shiny unique thing. The Archetypes aren't bad, they just don't fit in with a certain image of the class and/or an optimized version, and therefore people think they're bad.
If you focus on things other than combat and numbers, the archetypes become much more appealing. People who enjoy the numbers aspect of the game more than anything else won't enjoy the archetypes. People who enjoy other aspects, such as playing the role or doing character development on a story-based or emotional scale will enjoy the archetypes. People who enjoy both will have to decide where their preferences lie when the play the archetypes.
...how does that parse? Things can be fluffy AND mechanically interesting. They are not opposed to each other.
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...how does that parse? Things can be fluffy AND mechanically interesting. They are not opposed to each other.
The archetypes are mechanically interesting. They're just not mechanically optimized. You don't need an ability to be the best in the book for it to be interesting.
The complaint about the archetypes is that it takes away aspect of classes that are more powerful than what the archetype replaces. But that doesn't mean the archetype abilities aren't interesting in their own right.
If your the type who focuses on things other than mechanics, then there is no reason to take the archetype to begin with since you can refluff characters without needing to take an archetype.
A continuum exists. It's not an on/off switch where the only options are fluff or mechanics. One can care about mechanics while also not placing it at the highest priority. One can also care about mechanics that do things without caring that the mechanic is the best option in the book.