I'm rolling up a Mystic and I'm having trouble picking my starter feat. So my question: Does mystic strike allow bypassing damage reduction as a spell or just in cases of dr5/magic?
I believe it is just for bypassing dr/magic.
Dr/magic and for effecting incorporeal critters.
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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Considering that it costs all of 120 cr to add a fusion to a level 1 weapon (and relatively small amounts with higher level weapons, when you can buy/make them), IMO the Mystic Strike feat is really not worth it. Any weapon with a fusion counts as magic for bypassing DR/magic and affecting incorporeal creatures.
About the only exception would be for characters that use natural attacks, vesk, or characters with a venom spur. Even then, a feat is a pretty high bar.
120 credits is over 10% of your starting wealth. Being able to never have to worry about paying for such is not a small thing, especially since it also frees you to more readily swap weapons.
On the other hand the called fusion is nice to have, and transferring it to a new weapon isn't that hard if there's a spellcaster in the party.
Rather then picking mystic strike I would go with longarm prophiciency (if you want to go ranged) or advanced melee weapons (in the other case) and at lvl 3 versatile specialisation
Metaphysician wrote: 120 credits is over 10% of your starting wealth. Being able to never have to worry about paying for such is not a small thing, especially since it also frees you to more readily swap weapons. A single feat is worth orders of magnitude more than 120 credits.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Using your feat at 1st level (which you then probably can't change*) to gain pretty much the same benefit for things you can buy/make at minimal expense (and give you additional benefits) is... not a good trade. Transferring fusions is pretty easy outside of combat in the RAW (pg. 191, Installing and Transferring Fusions) and substantially cheaper than a fusion seal or buying a completely new fusion.
If it comes down to it, it's not all that expensive in credits to have a called fusion on all of a character's "normal" weapons (which is effectively paying cash for the same benefit as the Quick Draw feat; except the called fusion is better, because the weapons can be anywhere within 100 ft) after a session or two. And if the character "finds" a weapon they like more, it takes all of 10 minutes (and 50% of the cost to purchase a new fusion) to transfer a fusion from an "old" weapon to the "new" one.
Again, the only characters that might find the Mystic Strike feat useful (IMO) would be ones that use natural attacks, unarmed strikes, or a venom spur; as these "weapons" can't have fusions installed.
*- A mnemonic editor mk 1 has an item level of 5 and can only "overwrite" choices taken during the last two level gains; by RAW, it can only be obtained by a 3rd level character (character level +2; see Item Level on pg. 167), who can only change the choices made when gaining 2nd or 3rd level (not 1st).
Dragonchess Player wrote: Considering that it costs all of 120 cr to add a fusion to a level 1 weapon (and relatively small amounts with higher level weapons, when you can buy/make them), IMO the Mystic Strike feat is really not worth it. Any weapon with a fusion counts as magic for bypassing DR/magic and affecting incorporeal creatures.
About the only exception would be for characters that use natural attacks, vesk, or characters with a venom spur. Even then, a feat is a pretty high bar.
Quote: Weapons with fusions are considered magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Only the ghost killer infusion on a kinetic weapon is able to affect incorporeal enemies.
Regular infusions count as magic for DR, not for affecting incorporeal creatures.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Rikkan wrote: Dragonchess Player wrote: Considering that it costs all of 120 cr to add a fusion to a level 1 weapon (and relatively small amounts with higher level weapons, when you can buy/make them), IMO the Mystic Strike feat is really not worth it. Any weapon with a fusion counts as magic for bypassing DR/magic and affecting incorporeal creatures.
About the only exception would be for characters that use natural attacks, vesk, or characters with a venom spur. Even then, a feat is a pretty high bar.
Quote: Weapons with fusions are considered magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Only the ghost killer infusion on a kinetic weapon is able to affect incorporeal enemies.
Regular infusions count as magic for DR, not for affecting incorporeal creatures. Ghost killer allows attacks to do full damage.
See pg. 264: "An incorporeal creature doesn't have a physical body. It is immune to all nonmagic kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it."
A nonmagic kinetic weapon can't damage an incorporeal creature at all. A magical kinetic weapon will do half damage.
Dragonchess Player wrote: Ghost killer allows attacks to do full damage.
See pg. 264: "An incorporeal creature doesn't have a physical body. It is immune to all nonmagic kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it."
A nonmagic kinetic weapon can't damage an incorporeal creature at all. A magical kinetic weapon will do half damage.
Agreed.
And applying a fusion to a weapon does allow it to bypass DR if it was magical, but won't turn it into a magic weapon. And thus won't be able to deal half dmg to incorporeal creatures.
Rikkan wrote: Dragonchess Player wrote: Ghost killer allows attacks to do full damage.
See pg. 264: "An incorporeal creature doesn't have a physical body. It is immune to all nonmagic kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it."
A nonmagic kinetic weapon can't damage an incorporeal creature at all. A magical kinetic weapon will do half damage.
Agreed.
And applying a fusion to a weapon does allow it to bypass DR if it was magical, but won't turn it into a magic weapon. And thus won't be able to deal half dmg to incorporeal creatures. Pathfinder uses the same wording, and the Pathfinder FAQ ruling is that things that penetrate DR/Magic also work against incorporeal.
Weapon fusions are the only way to make weapons magic, so what else would the incorporeal rules be talking about?
Well let's see, there's the Arcane Assailant Soldier, who's Rune specifically calls out affecting Incorporeals in addition to bypassing DR/Magic, there's kinetic-damage-dealing spells, or there's Magical/Hybrid weapons.
This isn't pathfinder and page 191 is clear that fusions count as magic for DR without mentioning incorporeal.
Therefore, until there's a starfinder FAQ, fusions don't help against incorporeal.
(also, have you got a link to the pathfinder FAQ you're talking about, I can't find it)
found it
The comment about errata means that the wording should have changed, therefore if starfinder is using wording that doesn't include attacking to incorporeal, starfinder is different (now checking to see if the errata was applied to PF)
Current text in beastiary 1 under Incorporeal:
Quote: Incorporeal (Ex) An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms This explicitly calls out "strikes as magic"
In the starfinder CRB:
Quote: It is immune to all nonmagical kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it. An incorporeal creature takes full damage from other incorporeal creatures and effects, as well as from all force effects. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage have only a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. This does not mention "strikes as magic"
As an additional point, the crafting rules mention creating magic weapons and weapon fusions; the DR rules say that all weapons with fusions are magic weapons and ammo from a weapon with a fusion counts as fired from a magic weapon.
So...
The DR rules makes me think that attacks from a kinetic weapon with a fusion actually do do 50% damage to incorporeal targets (yes, I just changed my mind, but it took reading several rules sections to do it)
Link to FAQ: Pathfinder RPG Bestiary Frequently Asked Questions
Bestiary FAQ wrote: Incorporeal Creatures and "Counts as Magic": Say I have an attack that counts as magical for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction, such as from the monk's ki pool (magic). Does that mean I can't harm an incorporeal creature at all, since the attack doesn't count as magical for that purpose?
Such attacks should also be able to harm incorporeal creatures as if the attack was magic. This will be reflected in future errata.
Yes, I know that this isn't Pathfinder. However, it does show the danger in trying to extract too much meaning from text that does look copy/pasted from Pathfinder.
Edit: actually, what this shows is that not even Paizo staff can keep up with the FAQ, or they would have known the text was unclear and fixed it.
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