Mystic Connection: Mindbreaker

[StygianRose]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to know what people think of the Mindbreaker mystic? I haven't seen any guides crop up or even a rough rating for the various connections, but despite sounding like a blast in fluff... The mechanics come off as underwhelming?

I was directly comparing it to the Overlord, and it feels like its abilities are grossly overcosted - why would I ever spend 1 RP and give a save to reduce a hit by 1 to 20 damage. Immediately after combat, I can get at least four times that value in stamina points!

The third level ability seems pretty weak too - just 3 to 20 nonlethal?

Do I have the right of it, and the connection is underpowered filler as is par-the-course for Paizo products? Or am I misunderstandint how abilities stack up in Starfinder?

Thank you,
A dude who wants to asplode heads.

[Deadmanwalking]

Damage boosts are very uncommon in Starfinder. Mindbreaker's options in that line are thus worth a fair bit more than they might seem to be.

Also, Overlord is debatably the best Connection available. So comparing even good options to it tends to result in them coming up short.

[StygianRose]

Thanks Deadman!

I was looking at races, and I wondered: obviously Vesk isn't the most optimal race (that is Shirren or Dwarf I believe)... But can they be a servicable chassis for a Mystic?

By and large, I was considering their unique natural weapon as being by-and-far a step above Basic Melee. Mystic doesn't care horribly about -1 Int.

With weapon out of the way, being able to just jump straight into heavy armor with one feat sounds better on paper than 2 feats for Longarms (Prof. + Spec.) or 3 feats for Advanced Melee (Prof. + Spec. + Heavy Armor). I'm not convinced that Operative Weapons are worthwhile to anyone except operatives.

[Deadmanwalking]

Operative weapons are definitely not worth it to anyone but Operatives.

Vesk unarmed combat is, in fact, a lot worse mechanically than even basic melee weapons.

Melee Mystics are thus best built as Dwarves (for Advanced Weapon Proficiency free of charge) or Humans (for the two Feats). Investing two Feats in Longarms is also quite solid. A Vesk is also workable, but is gonna wind up using weapons like everyone else.

Another thing to note about Starfinder, is that Feats other than Proficiencies are mostly neat side benefits, not required to make characters work, so spending two or three of them on Proficiencies isn't as big a deal as it would be in Pathfinder.

[Malk_Content]

StygianRose wrote:

Hi everyone!

I was directly comparing it to the Overlord, and it feels like its abilities are grossly overcosted - why would I ever spend 1 RP and give a save to reduce a hit by 1 to 20 damage. Immediately after combat, I can get at least four times that value in stamina points!

Because if you go down your going to be spending at least that to stay alive? More to be useful. Because you get all your used RP back each day with a rest and you probably don't need (or will have the time) to spend it all on Stamina healing? Because HP is harder to regain than SP and thus Share Pain saves you the amount of HP you would normally get back on a rest. And maybe because you ignored the other half of that ability which is dealing that damage back to the foe who targeted you.

And the 3rd ability is very nice. Firstly because lethal or non lethal doesn't really matter, if you want to kill the guy you can just stab them once the fight is over. Secondly it gives a bunch of your spells a guaranteed effect. Yeah it isn't much damage but at least your spell did something!

[Dragonchess Player]

Pretty much any race, even korasha lashunta with -2 Wis, can be serviceable with a mystic. Given the way ability scores are distributed, the boosts every 5 levels, and the Personal Upgrades, starting with 14 Wis (rather than 16 or 18) isn't "crippling" like it would be in Pathfinder.

Vesk natural weapons are... OK, at best. Armor Savant, on the other hand, is quite useful for any character concept.

Operative weapons can be useful for certain non-operatives. Specifically, for high-Dex/low-Str characters (probably focused on ranged combat) as a backup option if they need to make melee attacks. Operative weapons are the only melee weapons that use the Dex mod instead of the Str mod on attack rolls.