I was feeling out the campaign I'm playing in before getting into this stage of planning, but I figure it's time to go there. I'm running a melee Solarian and I'd be interested in some input on possible ways to build her going forward.
Theme: Outlaw
Class: Solarian (Weapon Solarian, Level 2 at this point)
Race: Maraquoi
(We're an RP-heavy campaign and as a result, this character comes with an exhaustively detailed backstory and concept -- wherein I kind of flubbed some details of the maraquoi homeworld -- that you can read here if so inclined.)
Current Stats: Str - 12, Dex - 10, Con- 12, Int - 10, Wis - 13, Cha - 16
First ability increase will be applied to Wis, Cha, Str and Int. Str - 14, Dex - 10, Con - 12, Int - 12, Wis - 15, Cha - 18
Second ability increase will be applied to Str, Dex, Con and Cha. Str - 16, Dex - 12, Con - 14, Int- 12, Wis - 15, Cha - 19
Where possible, Personal Upgrade augmentations will be priorities for spending character wealth. A Mk. 1 (+2) Upgrade to Str as early as possible, and a Mk. 2 (+4) upgrade to Dex as close to level 7 as possible.
Class Skills: (Asterisks represent ranks taken thus far)
Acrobatics, Athletics**, Bluff**, Diplomacy, Intimidate*, Mysticism*, Perception*, Profession, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival*
With 4 Skill Ranks per level I'm expecting to invest most of my ranks where I have them already, perhaps expanding her portfolio a little to include ranks in Sense Motive. On getting Sidereal Influence at 3rd level, the likely choice of Graviton skill is Bluff and Photon skill is Intimidate.
Feats:
1st Level: Diversion
3rd Level: Step Up
5th Level: Connection Inkling (Psychokinetic Hand, Telekinetic Projectile, Reflecting Armor)
7th Level: Enhanced Resistance (Kinetic)
9th Level: Antagonise
Stellar Revelations:
1st Level: Black Hole and Supernova
2nd Level: Stellar Rush
4th Level: Dark Matter
6th Level: Hypnotic Glow (or Glow of Life)
8th Level: Defy Gravity
9th Level: Ray of Light
10th Level: Gravity Surge
Gear Purchase priorities will focus on serviceable armor, Solarian Weapon crystals, and an assortment of Melee and Ranged weapons with the best Fusions she can manage as backups.
Interested in feedback and advice. I've studied this class but this is my first time actually taking it for a spin in a campaign. Thanks, everyone.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Dark Matter and Enhanced Resistance [Kinetic] won't stack, and the former is significantly worse. You're primarily speccing into charisma, so you should be on the lookout for revelations that care about your charisma. Stellar Rush is a phenomenal choice for any Solarian, and one of the few where your charisma is relevant (although only when you don't use your sword at the end of the charge, and only while photon attuned). It might be worth considering Improved Combat Maneuver (Bull Rush), although your Str will never be as high as it could be, for landing the thing.
Why Connection Inkling? Seems like a super strange choice - and you can just use a Starknife for better performance than TK projectile. You'll probably never be good enough at Antagonize to pull off the DCs reliably, mostly because Sidereal Influence doesn't work in combat. I think you'll be happier with these feats:
L1: Weapon Focus (Advanced Melee)
L3: Improved Feint (so you can Feint your target before Stellar Rushing them).
L5: Enhanced Resistance [Kinetic], and never ever even consider Dark Matter.
L7: Greater Feint; now your Stellar Rush combo also debuffs your opponent for your party to support you against the target.
L9: Coordinated Shot, for more buffing of your party mates - as you continue to level up, your performance as a primary damage dealer will continue to fall behind, since you're not primary speccing into Strength, and you'll want more and more to use your powers to set up stacking buffs for your party.
Since you're a weapon Solarian, you should also be taking a hard look at finding a way to become proficient with heavy armor, such as by spending a feat. I didn't include it above, but it can be a very good choice, with the only significant downside being that most heavy armors will slow down your charge range.
Here are the Revelations where your Charisma matters:
2:
Flare
Gravity Hold (Note: this one is usually pretty bad).
Radiation
Stellar Rush
Note: All of these suffer from action economy issues if you want to combine them, but the really obvious combinations are Gravity Boost for Stellar Rushing up walls and across ceilings, and Radiation, which will inflict Cha mod + 1/2 Solarian level damage when you Stellar Rush up to something, due to it being a poison. Plasma Sheath will let your Stellar Rushes deal more damage (even when you Bull Rush), but only if you hit, and you're better at being Charismatic than landing melee hits.
6:
Crush
Gravity Surge
Hypnotic Glow
Note: Again, action economy issues, and the only one of the three that doesn't render its target immune to followup attempts is Gravity Surge, which is a fairly unimpressive Revelation. Blazing Orbit can be good here, because you can lay down flames before or after Stellar Rushing, as can Corona, since you're going to be hit a bunch. If you're committing to playing around with your Charisma stat, I assume your revelations so far are Stellar Rush and Radiation, so personally I would choose Hypnotic Glow and a revelation from the previous list. Defy Gravity can be useful, since you can use it before a Stellar Rush to get into position, but don't forget, you can't charge while flying.
9:
Starquake
Time Dilation
Both of these are Graviton side, and I don't know how much time you plan on spending Graviton attuned to get your hands on them. Ray of Light, as you planned on, is a perfectly reasonable choice instead if you plan on spending most of your time in Photon mode, provided your GM is either bad at physics or willing to house-rule that the ability works inside a medium which only slightly scatters light, such as air (it RAW ignores bending of light, so never forget, you can use it through water, then demand your GM work out the rules for the explosion that should occur when you arrive - you can google Pistol Shrimp for an introduction to what ought to happen, although it's worth noting your explosion is due to displacing water when you rematerialize, not due to momentum, which the power magically dissipates). If you're planning on being Graviton-attuned, Wormholes is usually better than Ray of Light, particularly with forced movement powers like Stellar Rush or Gravity Hold, since you can use it for forced teleportation, although how useful the Wormhole is as a shield requires your GM to house-rule - the holes only explicitly mention teleporting creatures, so how it interacts with objects on various levels has to be house-ruled on. On one extreme, teleported creatures exit the Wormhole naked and unarmed, and on the other, you can manifest what amounts to a shield that will teleport any incoming kinetic or energy attack to the other hole.
10:
Stealth Warp is a fantastic combo with using Bluff to hide, and fundamentally compatible with Stellar Rush for charging while Stealthed, even though it doesn't have any Charisma interactions directly built in to it. Its only problem, like at L9, is that so far we've been focusing on having you use Photon attunement in battle.
14:
Neither of these cares about your Charisma, and neither is particularly compatible with a high Charisma weapon Solarian.
Thanks for the response, some interesting food for thought here.
Dark Matter and Enhanced Resistance [Kinetic] won't stack, and the former is significantly worse.
Strictly-speaking they don't have to stack so long as Dark Matter is there in clutch moments to provide resistance against a broader range of damage. What's attractive about it is that, unlike with Enhanced Resistance, it resists basically everything that isn't psychic or attribute damage if I'm reading the power correctly.
The question is how often will that actually matter. I'm getting used to the rhythm of attunement mechanics and I think it could be a sound strategy... and I've already faced enough energy weapons in combat that of the two it's actually the usefulness of Enhanced Resistance (Kinetic) I'm tempted to doubt. But having both would seem to cover more bases.
You're primarily speccing into charisma, so you should be on the lookout for revelations that care about your charisma.
I agree.
Why Connection Inkling? Seems like a super strange choice - and you can just use a Starknife for better performance than TK projectile.
Fair question. I'm optimising for roleplay as much as for combat: this one I picked as roleplay-appropriate given the character's background as a maraquoi of a formerly spiritual vocation, and one that provided powers that are on-brand for a Solarian, albeit not as strong as Stellar Revelations would be.
I don't expect the cantrips to be good for much except impressing rubes... but I'm also in the kind of campaign where I can expect out-of-combat creativeness and things like impressing rubes to be important. Far as combat mechanics go the real sell for me here is Reflecting Armour, something I have already found myself wishing I had in combat. Except it may not be relevant very long.
You'll probably never be good enough at Antagonize to pull off the DCs reliably, mostly because Sidereal Influence doesn't work in combat.
I don't think I need it to; Intimidate is one of my primary class skills and focuses for skill ranks, and combined with my CHA bonuses should be pretty reliable.
That said, I like your ideas with Improved Feint, Greater Feint and Coordinated Shot. I'm not super-worried about falling behind as primary damage dealer (hopefully with augmentations my STR won't be as low as it looks from my base stats) but I do like the idea of buffing my part members. I will give that some serious thought, thanks.
Here are the Revelations where your Charisma matters [snipped]
That looks about right. I think the list should also include anything (like Glow of Life) that involves spending Resolve Points.
I am tempted by both Crush and Reflection instead of Defy Gravity on this score (or maybe instead of Gravity Surge; Defy Gravity looks like too much fun). Stealth Warp also does look pretty cool, although when I get my second Zenith Revelation (assuming I survive to that point) I think it's Time Dilation that will really tempt me.
I am hoping to get mileage out of both modes and am staying balanced because I particularly want to avoid any Disproportionate Revelations penalties to attunement. Your comments about Ray of Light made me smile but I don't think our table is going to be all that fussy about the physics of the power (and for my part I'm not going to push my luck by asking for explosion damage, though it's a lovely thought :D ).
Thanks again for the thoughts, I appreciate them.
1) I don't follow what you're saying about Dark Matter. Both it and Enhanced Resistance [Kinetic] provide DR/-, with Dark Matter providing it at a substantially reduced rate than Enhanced Resistance [Kinetic]. There is absolutely no base one covers that the other does not - one is a superset of the other.
2) Yeah, Reflecting Armour is really, really awful. I don't think anyone should take it.
3) You should take another look at how Antagonize scales. Your odds of pulling it off are essentially going to go down every 2 levels or so.
4) Just don't forget, you can't use Defy Gravity to charge, and Reflection isn't going to work very well for you - not only will enemies usually hit you, you're not Dex speccing, so your reflects will usually miss.
5) Anything Resolve Point based only loosely needs your charisma - you can multiclass into Soldier any time you want to force your RP to use your Str or Dex instead (which is a very popular way to build Solarians, accordingly). If Glow of Life worked like how Mystics cure HP or how Envoys heal SP, it would be properly Charisma based.
My point about Dark Matter is that it provides resistance to "physical damage," not just kinetic damage. "Physical damage" should mean, again if I'm reading the power correctly, basically all forms of kinetic and energy damage. (If that just means kinetic damage it would not be useful as an add to Enhanced Resistance.)
Thanks for the rest.
My point about Dark Matter is that it provides resistance to "physical damage," not just kinetic damage. "Physical damage" should mean, again if I'm reading the power correctly, basically all forms of kinetic and energy damage. (If that just means kinetic damage it would not be useful as an add to Enhanced Resistance.)
Thanks for the rest.
Nope, not how it works unfortunately. The ability tells you what it does, it gives your DR. DR only resist non-energy type damage (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing). So the fire, acid, sonic, cold, electricity damage completely bypass the DR from Dark Matter. It a rather bad revelation.
Oh. Well, never mind then.