I'm gearing up for my very first Society game in about a week, and I'm almost done finalizing my character! I just wanted know, how useful is it? Does Running come up all that often? Is it even useful in combat? For a little context, I was planning on utilizing it in a speed stacking strategy for a super mobile Hit And Run/Blitz style Soldier.
Also, while I'm at it, any other general tips for Society? Thanks in advance for your feedback!
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Running comes up now and again (based off my pathfinder life) only time it seems to matter is when running away >_>; it's the jump bonus to look at increasing how far you can jump ( to the max of your movement speed) by x2 is great if you like to jump. Also something really fun about leaping into combat( or is that just me)?
If you run, that's a full action and now you can't attack. It would seem better to have Fleet (depending on your armor or lack thereof) + Improved Initiative than Jet Dash if you want to get into fray quicker and fight.
I find it useful for melee-focused characters who have to get into melee range against enemies who start at the far end of the map. Depending on terrain, spending one round running as full round action is better use of my turn rather than moving twice a round or moving once and hoping my usually weaker ranged attack hits.
Jumping is also great.
Jet dash and such is something i've been looking into and found out that a character can end up running at ridiculous speeds.
Base speed of 30'
Fleet for additional 10'
Speed Suspension for up to an additional 30'
Operative's Quick Movement for up to an additional 30'
And the operative's Improved Quick Movement for up to an additional 20'
This gives a total of 120' which jet dash can turn into 120 feet per second when running. Thats 131.67 Km/h or 81.82 miles per hour. Add in haste for an extra 30' and you are at 150 feet per second and 102.27 miles per hour or 164.59 Km/h.
You can also take one level of soldier for another 10'. 160 feet per second which would be 175.57 Km/h or 109.09 miles per hour.
Haste and the Speed Suspension both give enhancement bonuses to speed, they don't stack.
Speed Suspension for up to an additional 30'
Add in haste for an extra 30'
Haste and speed suspensions don't stack. They are both enhancement bonuses.
In general the value of the run action is limited by the terrain you are in. You must move in a straight line and cannot move through difficult terrain.
Depending on whether Jet Dash let's you exceed your maximum land speed during a jump, most people are better off using jump jets for a jumping boost. A 20' jump up with a running start is DC 40 with Jet Dash. You may need a move speed greater than 40' to have a farther horizontal jump than jump jets, depending on rulings.
Lastly the climbing master feat gives you a climb speed equal to your land speed. Given you can move double your climb speed as a singke move action, that can give you run like speeds without the the requirements of moving in a straight line, nor make you flat footed. At the cost of not holding things in your hands (battle gloves come to mind).
I find it useful for melee-focused characters who have to get into melee range against enemies who start at the far end of the map. Depending on terrain, spending one round running as full round action is better use of my turn rather than moving twice a round or moving once and hoping my usually weaker ranged attack hits.
Jumping is also great.
This seems like it is probably the most likely use. For really melee focused people to rapidly close distance. Probably don't want to get right up in somebodies grill doing this but get you to cover close enough to the target to pounce on them the next round. Also decent if you are doing a lot of open map type stuff like planet adventures to reposition yourself drastically to get distance on melee and better cover to fire from.
Also having a climb and swim speed of about 80 feet, max of 160 for a full round.
Move action to climb can use the rule on page 259 to double its movement by making an athletics roll at - 5 penalty. Your climbing example maxes out at 320 feet for two move actions, not 160.
If you take climbing master instead of using versatile movement, your climbing speed is equal to your land speed, 130 feet in this case (15th level operative + 1 level Soldier).
That caps out at 260 feet for a move action, 520 for a double. Not as fast as a Jet Dash run, but still a respectable 95 km/hr, that doesn't care about difficult terrain or going in a straight line, and has the ability to go over or around obstacles, or make jumps as part of it. It also allows you to move 260 feet (52 squares) as a move action and still take a standard action, like an attack.
To get back to the OP, I've played 1-01, 1-02, and 1-03 in SFS. I have not needed to run yet.
I've found moving 40 feet (Light Armor + Fleet) plus reach has come in handy in two encounters ensuring my melee Solarian has been able to melee attack every round of every fight. I could have used another 5 feet once to get a flanking position, so mobility is not useless, especially with multiple melee allies.
Lastly on the movement front, my now level 2 Solarian in SFS has bought climbing suckers as an augmentation, to allow for some 3-dimensional options at low level. Not sure how those are going to be ruled on by the GMs for SFS, but I'll guess I'll find out in the near future.
I think the most important thing that Jet Dash gives you is the double the height and distance om jumps. The DC's for high jumps are 4 times the height, so a running jump to clear a 5 foot wall would be a DC 20 athletics check, or dc 40 if you don't have a running jump. Jet Dash effectively halves that.
I like that thematically I could be running and jump on to the shoulders of a giraffe (about 11 feet at the shoulders, so DC 44). At first level, lets assume you have a 14 strength, a skill rank, a class skill bonus, that is a +7. If you rolled a 15 or better, that would give you a 22, or 5.5 feet. Jet dash doubles that to 11 feet. Congrats, you are now riding a giraffe. Sure, a 15 is high, but there are a million implications.
Alternatively, you could take a standing jump atop a 5 foot crate with a 13+.
Assuming you could take 10 for any reason, at first level you could take a standing long jump and clear a 8.5 foot gap, or running jump and clear 17 feet.
In short, I love this feat for that alone, but I am sure it will also be handy to be able to run 50% faster than most, and not be flat footed while doing so.
Given most characters have a single feat at 1st level, I would prioritize Fleet over Jet Dash. Fleet gets you a 160 foot run distance, but also a 40 foot move and an 80 foot charge, and +4 on Jump checks. Jet Dash gets you a 180 foot run distance, a 30 foot move and a 60 foot charge, and decreases jump DCs by roughly half.
At 2nd level, spend the 1,000 credits on Jump Jets, and now you can jump 20 feet straight up without a roll (DC 80 or DC 40 with Jet Dash) or 30 feet horizontally (which is DC 30 with a standing jump - and depending on how your GM rules on Jet Dash, can't be done with a running start).
Alternatively, get Climbing Suckers for 1,200 credits and have a 20 foot climb speed for more 3-D movement.
At later levels, when move speeds are higher and Athletics bonuses are bigger, Jet Dash can be more interesting, but I wouldn't take it as your first feat and probably not as your second either, purely from a game mechanics point of view.
I find it useful for melee-focused characters who have to get into melee range against enemies who start at the far end of the map. Depending on terrain, spending one round running as full round action is better use of my turn rather than moving twice a round or moving once and hoping my usually weaker ranged attack hits.
Jumping is also great.
"enemies who start at the far end of the map."
Just saying, this should be an INCREDIBLY rare situation in Starfinder.
Happened for me right in the 3rd Quest of Into the Unknown.
Even in Heavy Armor after a couple levels Soldiers and Solarians can make a move action and then charge as a standard action. Since the vast majority of Heavy Armor is only a -5 move, or a -10 at the most, they can cross anywhere between 60 and 75 feet and still attack.
That is actually as long as, if not longer than, most of the gun ranges in the game.
I'd rather run and be close and let other melee folks swarm me so I can potentially full attack on next turn a bunch of them or even just one melee enemy that approached, rather than charge for a single attack with -2 to hit. If nothing but ranged enemies, would run from cover to cover.
Also charging as a standard action is a specific build option for Soldiers/Solarian that I won't be doing.
Even so, it's still a speed of 130 with everything else listed. Which as i stated is a ridiculous speed for a character to move. Running at 142.65 km/h or 88.64 miles per hour. It's fast enough to run on water which i believe requires about 100 km/h to achieve. Also having a climb and swim speed of about 80 feet, max of 160 for a full round.
Haste and the Speed Suspension both give enhancement bonuses to speed, they don't stack.
You have bionic legs.
Getting back to the point, there is nothing to be ruled on, in my opinion, regarding whether a running jump is required. The wording is pretty straight forward.
"Whenever you jump, double the height and distance you can
jump."Whenever you jump... case closed sir.
Sorry I wasn't clear. I didn't mean a running jump is required, but that you can't jump 30 feet with a running start if your move speed is only 30 feet. As I noted, you need a DC 30 athletics check with the Jet Dash feat to do it from a standing start. I'll note most 1st level characters can't do that even on a natural 20.
To lay it out, at 1st level your move speed is 30 feet. You take the Jet Dash feat. You move 10 feet to get the benefit of a running start. You can now jump a maximum of 20 feet, having used 10 feet already, as the Jump rules say "As part of a move action, you can use Athletics to horizontally or vertically jump a distance no greater than your remaining amount of movement".
The question is, does the Jet Dash feat double the distance including all restrictions, such as your remaining amount of movement? At which point a 30 foot jump becomes possible with a running start and only a DC 15 athletics check with the Jet Dash feat. If Jet Dash does not modify the remaining amount of movement clause, it is not possible to get a running start and jump 30 feet. Again, assuming base 30 foot movement speed.
I was merely advocating at low level, the Fleet feat combined with Jump Jets will get you more general mobility than the Jet Dash feat. At mid to high levels, Jet Dash starts to be worth more, as speed increases add +4 to jump checks every extra 10 feet. So a 130 foot movement is +40 to jump checks, allowing for trivial 80-100 foot horizontal leaps and 20-25 foot vertical leaps, which is more than Jump Jets or even Forcepacks horizontally.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! The idea was indeed to make a super mobile Melee Soldier, and I was already planning on taking Fleet at either 1st or 2nd level!
Which reminds me, I was planning on taking Spellbane 1st level (to stack with that enchantment resistance Half-Elves get), but do spells come up that early in the game? Or should I take Spellbane at third and take Fleet first?
Even so, it's still a speed of 130 with everything else listed. Which as i stated is a ridiculous speed for a character to move. Running at 142.65 km/h or 88.64 miles per hour.
Haste and the Speed Suspension both give enhancement bonuses to speed, they don't stack.
Now all you need is a flux capacitor and 1.21 gigawatts of electricity...
Fleet doesn't work in Heavy Armor whereas Jet Dash does. Guessing a soldier will be using Heavy Armor, so thats something to consider.
Actually no. Tanks just aren't really my style. I went Soldier solely for its offensive capabilities, so light armor works just fine for me! (I was originally thinking of going Operative at first, but I wanted the aforementioned fighting styles, BAB, and weapon proficiencies without giving up feat slots.) Yeah, maybe it's not entirely optimal, but what can I say? I'm a glass cannon at heart.
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Fleet doesn't work in Heavy Armor whereas Jet Dash does. Guessing a soldier will be using Heavy Armor, so thats something to consider.Actually no. Tanks just aren't really my style. I went Soldier solely for its offensive capabilities, so light armor works just fine for me! (I was originally thinking of going Operative at first, but I wanted the aforementioned fighting styles, BAB, and weapon proficiencies without giving up feat slots.) Yeah, maybe it's not entirely optimal, but what can I say? I'm a glass cannon at heart.
Your character, but a melee Soldier (so presumably favoring Strength) who's going Light Armor is going to have a bad time...
Your character, but a melee Soldier (so presumably favoring Strength) who's going Light Armor is going to have a bad time...
Why? They've already stated they wanted a Hit and Run/Blitz Soldier. Hit and Run involves actually shooting someone with a ranged attack occasionally, which requires Dexterity. A Half-Elf could have 16 Str/16 Dex at 1st level, and 10's in everything else. At 1st level that is an AC of 14/15 (1st level armor) or 14/16 (2nd level armor). Compared to heavy armor's 14/16 (1st level armor) or 15/17 (2nd level armor).
We are talking about 1 point in AC and 1 point in to-hit in melee as the cost at 1st level. SFS scenerios aren't so finely tuned that missing or being hit an extra time in twenty is going to make things much different in terms of outcome.
Sure its not optimal in terms of raw AC and to-hit numbers, but there is a large section of parameter space between "optimal" and "having a bad time". They are also trading that AC and to-hit for mobility. At low levels, that can be a significant percentage increase in mobility.
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Your character, but a melee Soldier (so presumably favoring Strength) who's going Light Armor is going to have a bad time...Why? They've already stated they wanted a Hit and Run/Blitz Soldier. Hit and Run involves actually shooting someone with a ranged attack occasionally, which requires Dexterity. A Half-Elf could have 16 Str/16 Dex at 1st level, and 10's in everything else. At 1st level that is an AC of 14/15 (1st level armor) or 14/16 (2nd level armor). Compared to heavy armor's 14/16 (1st level armor) or 15/17 (2nd level armor).
We are talking about 1 point in AC and 1 point in to-hit in melee as the cost at 1st level. SFS scenerios aren't so finely tuned that missing or being hit an extra time in twenty is going to make things much different in terms of outcome.
Sure its not optimal in terms of raw AC and to-hit numbers, but there is a large section of parameter space between "optimal" and "having a bad time". They are also trading that AC and to-hit for mobility. At low levels, that can be a significant percentage increase in mobility.
That's fair. 10 Con as a melee also scares me a bit, but if glass cannon is what you're looking for.