My first impressions about Luminary

[exequiel759]

The following are my first impressions after reading the luminary class. I originally posted this a few days ago on the Starfinder 2e subreddit, but I figured I should post it here as well so it doesn’t get lost, as well as to discuss about my thoughts.

• * I feel that Set a Spotlight and Cast Role need to be streamlined a bit. Keeping track of the roles of every party member, your own role, and your enemies’ roles when you cast one onto them feels needlessly complicated. I think it would work much better if Cast Role were tied directly to setting the spotlight on someone. That would significantly reduce the class’s mental load without actually changing how it functions.

• * This is more of a personal preference, but since the luminary isn’t actually a spellcasting class, I’d prefer if stagecraft spells weren’t focus spells and instead worked more like a kineticist’s impulses. I think that would also help the class feel more unique. One of the class’s current problems, in my opinion, is that it feels too much like a martial bard focused around muse spells, but without being given enough additional mechanics to compensate for the lack of spellcasting.

• * Hardlight Prop is just bad. I understand that it’s supposed to be the class’s cantrip-like option, similar to a kineticist’s Base Kinesis, but unlike Base Kinesis, it barely does anything. Honestly, you could fold every platform benefit that interacts with Hardlight Prop into the base class and it still probably wouldn’t change much. I think the core effects need to be significantly improved, and if each subclass is meant to interact with it, then those interactions should be improved even further as well.

• * Since we’re talking about platforms, these need a lot of work as well. I already talked about the Hardlight Prop benefits, but the rest of their features aren’t much better. Each platform follows the standard “caster subclass” chassis by granting a trained skill, a class feat, and a focus spell, but why? The luminary is a martial class, and unlike casters (which usually don’t get to choose a feat at 1st level, making subclass-granted feats feel necessary) it doesn’t really need to be handed one when players could simply choose that feat themselves if they wanted it (though I'm not against the idea of more feats necessarily). I also don’t really see the need for platforms to grant trained skills when the class is so clearly centered around Performance, with several feats already allowing it to replace other skill checks with a Performance check. I’d much rather see each platform innately allow you to substitute Performance for certain checks tied to specific skills, or better yet, remove platforms altogether and let players customize their luminaries more freely. If the luminary is supposed to represent some kind of “producer” or “director,” there’s no reason you couldn’t be managing both a pop star and a soccer player at the same time. In fact, that’s likely going to happen in actual play, since your teammates will naturally come from wildly different backgrounds and specialties. I already touched on the changes I’d make to stagecraft spells, but to add to that: if players need to spend feats just to learn advanced and greater stagecraft spells, then I don’t really see why those spells need to remain platform-locked at all. At that point, they should either become part of the class’s natural progression or be added to a general pool of stagecraft spells available to every luminary, regardless of platform.

• * Finally, I think each role should provide both a benefit when applied to an ally and a drawback when applied to an enemy (a baseline Trope Deconstruction feature pretty much). I also think roles like Epic or Horror, which only function on a critical hit, should be reworked to do something more consistent. Some form of scaling for each role would probably help as well, since this feels like the class’s main selling point, yet currently comes across as a bit underwhelming.

• * This wasn’t part of the original list, but I felt it needed to be included: the luminary should automatically scale to legendary in Performance. I didn’t mention it initially because I hadn’t realized it didn’t scale until someone pointed it out here on the forums or on the subreddit (I honestly don't remember). The class already gets to master anyways, so there’s really no reason for it to stop there instead of progressing to legendary. I assume this was simply an oversight, and far from the only one in this book (the contest hardlight prop benefits also come to mind). Also, roles are more like movie or show genres than roles. Action isn't a role, action hero is.