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Hi All,
I've built a Halfing Operative (Spy) who focuses his skills on the "face" skills. The main "problem" with this is that Operative's dont get Diplomacy as a class skill (which I want). Is there any other way to get it as a class skill than the Themeless theme or Skill Synergy feat (or multiclassing i suppose)?
He's currently a Ace Pilot with Skill Synergy as his level 1 feat (Diplomacy & Mysticism). Ace Pilot makes him about as good a pilot as it is possible for a Level 1 character. And without any bonus skills points (Int = 10, no skill ranks in any Int based skills,) Im thinking that the level 6 power from Ace Pilot is going to be really good for him.
My next issue is Operative Exploits....
There are 10 available at Level 2 so you need to take at least two of them before the next tier of options opens up.
What does everyone think are the best ones?
Field Treatment seems decent - it's a way to restore HP on a relatively low HP character.
Jack of All Trades seems pretty good particularly for a low Int Operative like this one that does not have extra points in Int and is not going to be putting skill ranks in Int based skills.
Alien Archive is not for this character but might combo with JoAT for presumably triple your OE bonus?
Nightvision seems good to me but im hesitant to spend an Exploit on something I can just buy with money.
Combat Trick is OK i guess but the feat options I dont find particularly impressive and this is limited to Combat Feats. Any particular combat feats people have been impressed with for an Operative / Small Arms user? Nimble Moves seems solid but then there is the Sure Footed exploit from the next tier of options which is just better.
Innoculation helps out with your low save.
Quick Disguise fits the theme.
Holographic Clone seems good but it's only 1/day until later.
Uncanny Mobility seems solid also. Preventing from provoking in a variety of situations. (But there is also Uncanny Shooter from the next tier which is better for a small arms user only like this character)
Uncanny Pilot is probably my least liked option.
I'm about to start a campaign with a Face Operative as well (mine is a Skittermander, because Int 8 Faces are the best Faces), and the only two ways I found were Skill Synergy and Themeless, although you could multiclass, too, if you wanted (I strongly did not want). I ended up going Themeless to cope, which was sad, because I really liked being Mercenary themed.
I don't see a lot of use in Field Treatment, since it's useless until your SP deplete, and hopefully you have a party Mystic if you manage to actually lose HP without dying. I agree with you that Alien Archive is a poor fit, and on Nightvision, particularly since Skittermanders have low-light and Darkvision on your armor is incredibly cheap. Do halflings have low-light?
I also agree with you on Holographic Clone and Uncanny Pilot. I actually have the same concern with Quick Disguise I do with HC - the daily limit is too harsh for my taste.
Inoculation looks tremendous, and I suspect it is, but only when you go up against a lot of poisons and diseases - it does jack all against other Fortitude save situations, like drugs (which are NOT poisons, per the rules) or spells or nasty crits or what have you. I'm too worried about those to trust in Inoculation to do its job protecting me.
So we're down to Combat Trick, JoAT, and UM. I plan to take JoAT (as you said, perfect fix for a low int character, and it fits the Skittermander "it counts as helping!" meme) and UM (UM stacks with US, letting you do both things without provoking an AoO); I settled on UM when I realized the Combat Feat I was most interested in was the Mobility chain, and UM was like Mobility but better for my purposes.
The most tempting Combat Feat I can find for Operatives at low levels is Weapon Focus, which is what I spent my L1 feat on. It's super important your attacks hit for Debilitating Trick, which is going to often be your most valuable contribution to a fight. I consider all of these Combat Feats to be tempting for Operatives:
Weapon Focus helps you land Debilitating Tricks, and is worth +2 at L9!
Improved Initiative is key, since you want to make sure you go early enough to apply Debilitating Trick before your party's Solder gets his Heavy Weapon out.
Coordinated Shot should work fabulously with UM and US, because it has no wording it preventing you from buffing yourself. Check with your GM on this one, I guess, but even if he rules you can't give yourself the +1, it shouldn't usually be tough for you to move out of the way to enable the buff for your Soldier.
Far Shot should be important for similar reasons Weapon Focus is.
Fleet and Kip Up have intrinsic synergy since you're going to be moving a lot anyway, but they're not super duper compelling.
Multi-Weapon Fighting is like Weapon Focus only worse, but if you have the WBL to afford the second weapon, it can be good at later levels with Multiattack Mastery (and it does stack with Weapon Focus).
Penetrating Attack is mandatory.
And that's about it. Even with the non-Combat feats I consider mandatory, like Enhanced Resistance, there just isn't enough I'm tempted by to press me to spend an Exploit on having another. Last time I tried speccing my planned growth out to 20, I ended up with at least one extra feat left over, I had so many compared to what I really wanted. I think I spent it on Fusillade?
I think Jack of All Trades is one of the best exploits for any low int operative that still needs to do any sort of skill monkeying. If you have an envoy or high int mechanic in the group, it's less important, but still pretty solid.
I'd personally rule that JoAT and AA should cause a trebling of the bonus from Operative's Edge, but I don't recall reading that anywhere and I think that's an individual DM's call. But I don't think AA fits your motif.
For me, that leaves Combat Trick, Inoculation, or Uncanny Mobility.
Really, the choice there depends on how you think your campaign is going to go. There are a lot of poisons and diseases in SF and they all suck, hardcore, now. You want to make those saves. Inoculation is a pretty solid help for that and a great defense option. Combat Trick might be necessary for your build if you're blowing a bunch of feats (especially since you're spending your 1st level feat on Skill Synergy). Uncanny Mobility means less hits against you, potentially, and that's never a bad thing.
I think Jack of All Trades is one of the best exploits for any low int operative that still needs to do any sort of skill monkeying. If you have an envoy or high int mechanic in the group, it's less important, but still pretty solid.
I'd personally rule that JoAT and AA should cause a trebling of the bonus from Operative's Edge, but I don't recall reading that anywhere and I think that's an individual DM's call. But I don't think AA fits your motif.
For me, that leaves Combat Trick, Inoculation, or Uncanny Mobility.
Really, the choice there depends on how you think your campaign is going to go. There are a lot of poisons and diseases in SF and they all suck, hardcore, now. You want to make those saves. Inoculation is a pretty solid help for that and a great defense option. Combat Trick might be necessary for your build if you're blowing a bunch of feats (especially since you're spending your 1st level feat on Skill Synergy). Uncanny Mobility means less hits against you, potentially, and that's never a bad thing.
I feel like what will make Inoculation really shine will be when we inevitably get a splat giving us rules for the really good weapons the Pact Worlds banned on "civilized" planets, because some of them are going to be banned because they leak radiation everywhere, and Inoculation is an incredible safeguard against hand cancer from holding your plutonium gun. But we don't have those yet, so you don't have an instantly compelling reason to spend a lot of time where you expect to be exposed to a lot of poisons and diseases, and if you find out you're headed somewhere dirty, you can buy a lead suit before you go.
JoAT and AA will cause a tripling. The rule is on page 242:
When you are asked to multiply a value or roll more than once, the
multipliers (×2, ×3, and so on) are not multiplied by one another.
Instead, you combine them into a single multiplier, with each
extra multiple adding 1 less than its value to the first multiple.
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Halflings have normal vision so Nightvision would grant both lowlight and dark vision.
Weighing up everything, I think I’m now leaning towards themeless for Diplomacy and freeing up my 1st feat for Weapon Focus at 1st level. Probably Jack of All Trades at 2, Great Fortitude at 3 and Uncanny Mobility at 4.
I might consider HC and Innoculation for later on when the extra uses per day and larger bonuses kick in.
QD 1/day makes it less useful as well. That didn’t click on my read through earlier.
I considered Far Shot but the range increments of the small arms weapons balloon out after the first couple of levels so I don’t think that will be too much of a problem. Halflings get bonuses with Sniper weapons so I might pick one of those up anyway.
For later on I’m considering Fast Talker and Diversion due to my likely high Bluff. Also Spellbane since I likely will not have any spells or SLAs.
Halflings have normal vision so Nightvision would grant both lowlight and dark vision.
Weighing up everything, I think I’m now leaning towards themeless for Diplomacy and freeing up my 1st feat for Weapon Focus at 1st level. Probably Jack of All Trades at 2, Great Fortitude at 3 and Uncanny Mobility at 4.
I might consider HC and Innoculation for later on when the extra uses per day and larger bonuses kick in.
QD 1/day makes it less useful as well. That didn’t click on my read through earlier.
I considered Far Shot but the range increments of the small arms weapons balloon out after the first couple of levels so I don’t think that will be too much of a problem. Halflings get bonuses with Sniper weapons so I might pick one of those up anyway.
For later on I’m considering Fast Talker and Diversion due to my likely high Bluff. Also Spellbane since I likely will not have any spells or SLAs.
You can use a Sniper Rifle, but you fundamentally can't Trick Attack and use Sniper Mode on the damn thing, which is super disappointing. :'( If you go that route, Versatile Focus is pretty boss, since it extends your Weapon Focus to both operative melee and sniper rifles.
Big reason I want Far Shot is so I can more safely ditch my laspistol when I want to - there are other guns I may want to employ, like the electric ones when I need to ensure my target lives, and I don't want to be obsessing over gun ranges.
Fast Talk has CRAZY scaling - I wouldn't expect to be able to pull it off at anything but the earliest levels. At level 20, it's DC 50, and beating a DC 50 skillcheck with any kind of reliability takes an extraordinarily dedicated build I am skeptical you are pursuing, since you're an Operative (so you'll be focusing at least a bit on Dex).
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There is a 2nd tier exploit to let you trick attack with sniper rifles (no damage bonus but you do get the debilitating injury)
This is for SFS which, I think, will go to L12 or maybe 14.
At L12 I would have a conservative bonus of 10 (T10) + 12 (ranks) + 5 (Cha) + 4 (OE) = 31.
A CR 14 creature would have a DC of 41. So I would need to roll a Nat 20 barring other bonuses.
Ok fair enough, you’ve convinced me, that doesn’t seem viable for my build.
There is a 2nd tier exploit to let you trick attack with sniper rifles (no damage bonus but you do get the debilitating injury)
This is for SFS which, I think, will go to L12 or maybe 14.
At L12 I would have a conservative bonus of 10 (T10) + 12 (ranks) + 5 (Cha) + 4 (OE) = 31.
A CR 14 creature would have a DC of 41. So I would need to roll a Nat 20 barring other bonuses.
Ok fair enough, you’ve convinced me, that doesn’t seem viable for my build.
You can trick attack with a sniper rifle, but only out to its base range - there's no legal way to combine trick attack (with its mandatory movement) with aiming the sniper rifle and looking down its scope, so you can't apply the debilitating trick at "full" range, or "sniper mode" as I referred to it earlier.
You're not wrong but it is almost certainly an oversight and should, in my opinion, be houseruled to work. :)
I feel like what will make Inoculation really shine will be when we inevitably get a splat giving us rules for the really good weapons the Pact Worlds banned on "civilized" planets, because some of them are going to be banned because they leak radiation everywhere, and Inoculation is an incredible safeguard against hand cancer from holding your plutonium gun. But we don't have those yet, so you don't have an instantly compelling reason to spend a lot of time where you expect to be exposed to a lot of poisons and diseases, and if you find out you're headed somewhere dirty, you can buy a lead suit before you go.
I totally agree with all of that, but...
Thanks for the clarification on tripling with AA/JoAT. I knew about that general rule. My conundrum was I wasn't sure if these two multipliers were intended to stack in the first place or not. I think you're correct and they are, I just don't feel confident enough in that to go out on a limb and say yes, yet.
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You can trick attack with a sniper rifle, but only out to its base range - there's no legal way to combine trick attack (with its mandatory movement) with aiming the sniper rifle and looking down its scope, so you can't apply the debilitating trick at "full" range, or "sniper mode" as I referred to it earlier.
Trick Attack is ONLY with "with a melee weapon with the operative special property or with any small arm."
I think they're assuming you're taking this 6th level operative exploit (eventually):
DEBILITATING SNIPER (EX)
You can use trick attack with sniper weapons. You do not add trick attack damage to your attack, but the target is still flat-footed, and you can use debilitating Tricks.
That plus bleeding shot seems pretty potent at first glance (but I think the math doesn't actually work out in your favor).
You're not wrong but it is almost certainly an oversight and should, in my opinion, be houseruled to work. :)If it is an oversight, it's one the devs have been silent on AFAIK, where they have been more vocal on other starfinder issues. So I'm not sure.
That's understandable, though near as I can tell the Starfinder devs have chosen not to engage or comment on rather a lot of rules issues lately. I hope there's a big batch of FAQs around the corner!
The main reason why I think Debilitating Sniper means you should be able to leverage the Sniper quality with Trick Attack is that near as I can tell, you don't actually gain anything else from using a sniper rifle with Trick Attack. The pistol is going to get Trick Shot damage, so the rifle is falling behind on DPS. A level 13 Shirren-eye rifle has a base range increment of 80 ft, the same as a level 1 Azimuth laser pistol, so there's no range advantage. The rifle is unwieldy, whereas the pistol can also be used for full attacks, so the pistol is more versatile. Pistols are lighter, and have considerably bigger magazine capacities.
If you let operatives use the Sniper quality with Trick Attack sniper rifles are an interesting if not exactly stellar weapon option. If they can only fire them normally, there's pretty much no upside to Debilitating Sniper whatsoever.
I think they're assuming you're taking this 6th level operative exploit (eventually):
That plus bleeding shot seems pretty potent at first glance (but I think the math doesn't actually work out in your favor).DEBILITATING SNIPER (EX)
You can use trick attack with sniper weapons. You do not add trick attack damage to your attack, but the target is still flat-footed, and you can use debilitating Tricks.
I'm not sure how much I like Bleeding Shot. I'm wary both of needing to shoot targets that don't bleed and of applying more damage from myself than a debuff to let the rest of the party hurt my target more.
My current plan for my L6 and L8 exploits (my L2 and L4 are Jack of All Trades and Uncanny Movement; I'm playing a Ghost Dex/Cha/Str build) are Uncanny Shooter and Sure-Footed, to continue to emphasize my mobility. L10 and L12 are Improved Uncanny Mobility and Versatile Movement, and L14 is Efficient Cloaking Field. Past that, I'm not sure what I want, but I'm content to put off deciding that for now.
I went with a different plan of attack for mine. It's not optimal (at least, I don't think it is) but it fit what I was going for. Mines a Ghost Dex/Int build, Goblin Ace Pilot and I really focused on the piloting thing (including taking Skill Focus-Pilot at 1, and Sky Jockey at 5).
Operative Exploits: Inoculation (2), Uncanny Pilot (4), Cloaking Field (B-5), Uncanny Shooter (6), Staggering Shot (8), Stunning Shot (10), Ever Vigilant (12), Knockout Shot (14), Multi-Attack Mastery (16), Efficient Cloaking Field (18), Deactivating Shot (20)
I'm debating switching out Inoculation for Uncanny Mobility and Ever Vigilant for Improved Uncanny Mobility. But both of those are especially strong with my group and what we typically go through, so it's a balancing act.
I went with a different plan of attack for mine. It's not optimal (at least, I don't think it is) but it fit what I was going for. Mines a Ghost Dex/Int build, Goblin Ace Pilot and I really focused on the piloting thing (including taking Skill Focus-Pilot at 1, and Sky Jockey at 5).
Operative Exploits: Inoculation (2), Uncanny Pilot (4), Cloaking Field (B-5), Uncanny Shooter (6), Staggering Shot (8), Stunning Shot (10), Ever Vigilant (12), Knockout Shot (14), Multi-Attack Mastery (16), Efficient Cloaking Field (18), Deactivating Shot (20)
I'm debating switching out Inoculation for Uncanny Mobility and Ever Vigilant for Improved Uncanny Mobility. But both of those are especially strong with my group and what we typically go through, so it's a balancing act.
If you want to commit to piloting, Inoculation makes a lot of sense, for when your ship gets nuked. I definitely agree with your choice; it makes me wonder if you should consider Stalwart, if you face a lot of poisons and diseases.
Is stalwart a feat? It sounds familiar but I'm not seeing it on the SFSRD at the moment.
Uncanny Mobility is a must-have (if there is such a thing in SF).
Despite the "pew-pew" imagery of space fantasy, melee combat seems more prevalent (as in most every combat of the 20+ I've been in). So for a ranged Op, UM gets you out of trouble while attacking, even if they have reach and moved adjacent to you. For a melee Op, it's great to move around the BBEG to get the flank fast, and to avoid those AoO from large creatures. It's solid.
Inoculation and later Stalwart are good for melee Ops because poisons are so prevalent from melee enemies, and quite brutal. Since it's hard to get save boosts, and Fort is the weakest Op save, even a ranged Op should consider these (especially since at least one monster has a vicious ranged poison attack). Yes, the trick is slow to develop, but later tricks are better so get it with an early slot.
Jack of All Trades feels like a waste to me. For class skills, it's worse than tossing in a skill point until level 7, and no better until 11 which is pretty late if it's a decent skill. By then the DCs for tougher things will be beyond you unless backed with a good Stat, but then why didn't you put more points in it if it is a decent skill?
Mathy bits: 8 Int Op gets 8-1+2=9 Skills per level. At 3rd they have 27 skill points, so can have all 16 class skills (if they even want the Int ones which very likely have party support) and can max out 5 of those (5 skills X 3 + 11 skills at 1= 26). At 7th, when JoAT catches up, the Op has 63 and can max out nearly 8 skills (8 skills X 7 + 8 skills at 1=64). So yes, by 11th, the Op can have 8 maxed out skills and enough other skill points to catch up with or even pass JoAT on key skills. And that's after having the advantage for all those levels.
For non-class skills it's a decent boost, but remains too low to be of much use on important issues, and arguably taking Skill Synergy for the two non-Int ones, which are really good, (Mysticism & Diplomacy) might be a better use since feats arguably have less worth than tricks (not that I recommend that, unless planning to invest in them too).
I found Stalwart...duh, it's an operative exploit (the thing we're talking about).
I'm not sure I agree that UM is a must-have. I definitely think it's good, certainly one of the better options. But it stops (at most) one AOO per round (and only if you move as part of a trick attack, and only if that movement provokes from the target of the trick attack). I think it's must-have-ness will depend on your DM and campaign. I can only think of a couple of combats where this would have helped in d20/PF, so other than the fact that mobs hit harder in SF, I'm failing to find the necessity.
That being said, your 20+ (actual) combats certainly beats my 2 (self run, test) combats, so I'm going to defer to your expertise on the subject.
That all makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation.
I honestly hadn't thought of using a melee or switch hitter operative because of the way trick attack and operative weapon specialization worked. It seemed the obvious choice in d20/PF because of full attacks and TWF, but seemed like a good way to die in SF so I was planning on being in range in all but the direst of circumstance. But now that you mention it, the flanking bonus probably makes that a solid tactical option, and that definitely makes UM more valuable.