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There are definitely some interesting weapon options in Armory. Beyond the new weapons, you can see a few options that expand or break the Core weapon design philosophy, pushing beyond old limits of the DPS/capacity/range/elemental/special multidimensional curve. One note on a change in design philosophy - there are relatively few weapons with capacity of 100 charges, compared to the Core weapons. This is relevant when considering what to combine into a maze core and leverage a big battery for something nice that only has a 40 charge capacity standard.
First up, longarms.
This is probably the least interesting category, but there are few of note.
1. The Mining Lasers bring the Penetrating quality to the longarm class in a usable way in general combat (which distinguishes them from the acid damage Dross Guns, which have really bad range, number of shots, and a narrow level spread). Shorter range, heavier, and fewer shots than a standard laser rifle, but if you plant to destroy vehicles or doors often using longarm proficiency you keep decent damage for your regular shooting needs.
2. Breach Guns are the Penetrating/door buster weapons par excellence, but short range, analog, and knockdown are downsides for many in general combat, even though the damage is good. Not a bad backup piece in a mull space chamber for when you're at high level and really need to get through a door.
3. Plasma Forks have decent range, ok damage, but have a boost feature that brings them up to quite nice damage if you're playing a 3/4 BAB class who really needs to make that one shot count. The knockdown crit is often going to be a negative, however.
4. Polarity Rifles seem like they'd be great for a Soldier who is triple attacking an enemy who is easy to hit 2 and hopefully 3 times. Is that often enough to justify these, though?
5. Staccato Rifles are fantastic. More damage than a laser, with a very hard to resist element, ok to decent range, and automatic for when you need to hose a group down at point blank. A lame crit effect and only 20 shots (problematic in a late combat automatic spray scenario) are the only downsides.
Heavy weapons!
1. Check out those Coolant Sprayers, Entangle condition on a blast weapon. A great opener on pack of mooks trying to get up close and personal. You'll want something else for actual damage between applications of entangle condition, however.
2. The Hailcannon is a very nice automatic weapon option, excellent damage split between C/P with a good crit effect. A bit heavy, mediocre range, and very limited number of shots. A definite sidegrade consideration for Soldiers who love automatic projectile weapons.
3. The Ice Launcher appears to be the highest damage single target weapon. Unwieldy, mediocre range, limited shots, and heavy, but if you picked the Reaction Cannon because of its damage and aren't full attacking with it, consider this instead.
4. The Agitators do same/slightly better damage than a laser rifle, but also have a boost option to push single shot damage much higher, and don't suffer laser problems with smoke/fog. You lose some range, gain some weight, lose some burn damage on a crit, and only have 20 shots per battery. Probably a good trade for some.
5. Divergent Lasers are a blast weapon that falls in between the level gaps of the competing projectile Stellar Cannon. Accounting for that, they possibly do slightly less damage, have MUCH more range, have MUCH greater capacity per reload, trade Burn for Wound as a critical effect, but have Unwieldy. Were you really full attacking with a blast weapon anyway?
6. Hydra Cannons are the weaker plasma sisters of the Divergent Lasers. Less damage, shorter range, no critical effect. What they do have is the Shape special quality, allowing you to exclude some friendlies (depending on item quality) from the blast effect. I wouldn't plan for or invest in a contingency to dump a somewhat low damage AOE on your party who is being swarmed in melee, but if it happens a lot this is what you want.
7. Colossus Coil: Big E damage, nice Boost, very good range, awful ammo consumption and very heavy.
8. Stormcaller: enemies standing in a line behind cover to shoot at you? Get within 30-60' feet and light them up with a perpendicular lightning bolt for decent damage. The cool factor and weird art makes this one worth it.
9. Cathode Cannon: Love line weapons, but wish they were just a bit more forgiving, like maybe 10' wide instead of 5'? Start making enemies afraid of you in all corridor types.
10. Resonator: average (but sonic) damage, but with a really big Boost effect, good range, and Penetrating. If you're not full attacking this easily puts the Artillery Laser out of business.
11. Shout Projector: a sonic challenger to the Shock Caster, this has twice the range, less damage (but hard to resist), the same AOE, and can be switched between lethal and nonlethal damage.
I am personally a fan of the Hand cannon. Both thematically and functionally. It just fills a nice niche. Particularly good for operatives who are usually only doing one attack a turn when they trick attack anyway or use two hands when you really want to make things go boom.
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2. The Hailcannon is a very nice automatic weapon option, excellent damage split between C/P with a good crit effect. A bit heavy, mediocre range, and very limited number of shots. A definite sidegrade consideration for Soldiers who love automatic projectile weapons.
I wanted to give a shout out for this particular weapon, as it is DIRT CHEAP compared to other heavy weapon options. It's price alone makes it one of the best automatic weapons you can get at low levels. It's small battery also means you can buy a crap ton of them for similarly cheap prices, then autofire away to your heart's content.
It's literally equal to or better than the ice carbine and autotarget rifle, which cost twice as much!
The rotolaser has greater range and can hit EAC, but costs nearly THREE TIMES AS MUCH! It also doesn't scale as well as the hailcannons do.
(Seriously, just check out Jimble's Starfinder Equipment Master List and compare the numbers.)
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I got the chance to try out a Serpent Laser in Society play, it hurts, a lot. at first glance the range being shorter by 20 isn't too much of an issue. it deals more consistent damage at 2d4 for the azimuth class. But it's battery makes it nigh on inoperable, for a class that is going to be using it's move action nearly every turn, like Envoy, it's just not worth it, for Mechanic it's not as bad, unless you put it on a drone, then it's pretty bad. It's Crit isn't awful, in fact it's Crit damage is probably higher on average than a plane ole laser rifle, but the odds of critting on two shots make that a non factor.
A thing to note is it has the same average damage as a standard laser rifle, 4 for the azimuth class, for 1/10 the time between reloads. It probably is OK if you can get every shot to hit, but misses are really painful for this weapon.
I got the chance to try out a Serpent Laser in Society play, it hurts, a lot. at first glance the range being shorter by 20 isn't too much of an issue. it deals more consistent damage at 2d4 for the azimuth class. But it's battery makes it nigh on inoperable, for a class that is going to be using it's move action nearly every turn, like Envoy, it's just not worth it, for Mechanic it's not as bad, unless you put it on a drone, then it's pretty bad. It's Crit isn't awful, in fact it's Crit damage is probably higher on average than a plane ole laser rifle, but the odds of critting on two shots make that a non factor.
A thing to note is it has the same average damage as a standard laser rifle, 4 for the azimuth class, for 1/10 the time between reloads. It probably is OK if you can get every shot to hit, but misses are really painful for this weapon.
That's hilarious, it exactly matches up with the weapon text.
The serpent laser is a creation of the Aspis Consortium, meant to
undercut the pricing of its competitors while consuming battery
charges at a higher rate to drive the sale of additional batteries,
higher-capacity batteries, and recharging services. Experienced
spacefarers know the scheme behind the serpent laser and
generally avoid what they have come to call the “snakebite laser,”
though amateurs and novices often fall for the low initial price.
Serpent lasers have the same model names as many standard
laser rifles (azimuth, corona, aphelion, and perihelion), though
savvy customers know that the serpent laser models are often
slightly less powerful than their conventional counterparts.
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It's on my "Sell it for what I can get and replace it with a battery, because that's all it's actually worth" list.
I can say that sights actually look like they'd be worth getting if you're a backline character, help with your own allies granting your target cover.
Just did the math, it's actually worth less than a battery on resale.
I got the chance to try out a Serpent Laser in Society play, it hurts, a lot. at first glance the range being shorter by 20 isn't too much of an issue. it deals more consistent damage at 2d4 for the azimuth class. But it's battery makes it nigh on inoperable, for a class that is going to be using it's move action nearly every turn, like Envoy, it's just not worth it, for Mechanic it's not as bad, unless you put it on a drone, then it's pretty bad. It's Crit isn't awful, in fact it's Crit damage is probably higher on average than a plane ole laser rifle, but the odds of critting on two shots make that a non factor.
A thing to note is it has the same average damage as a standard laser rifle, 4 for the azimuth class, for 1/10 the time between reloads. It probably is OK if you can get every shot to hit, but misses are really painful for this weapon.
That's hilarious, it exactly matches up with the weapon text.
The serpent laser is a creation of the Aspis Consortium, meant to
undercut the pricing of its competitors while consuming battery
charges at a higher rate to drive the sale of additional batteries,
higher-capacity batteries, and recharging services. Experienced
spacefarers know the scheme behind the serpent laser and
generally avoid what they have come to call the “snakebite laser,”
though amateurs and novices often fall for the low initial price.
Serpent lasers have the same model names as many standard
laser rifles (azimuth, corona, aphelion, and perihelion), though
savvy customers know that the serpent laser models are often
slightly less powerful than their conventional counterparts.
Hehe reloading all the time is the feature of the weapon not a bug haha.
If I never reloaded my gun, I'd never have a smurfing chance to impress the ladies.
I think that the Icestar Staff is a pretty neat weapon, personally. A Solar Armored Solarion wielding one of those would be both thematically appropriate and hecka accurate on full attacks with the multi-weapon fighting feat and flashing strikes.
I'm still drooling over the 3d12 heavy weapon ice cannon. Attacking KAC or not, if your move action is spoken for you don't mind the unweildy weapon that thing is a beast.
Some of the disintegrator weapons are pretty hilarious - one of the low level heavy disintegrator weapons does 1d20 damage in a line, meaning every shot is a ridiculous gamble
so does the serpent laser do have 40 charges and use 20 per shot?
No. It's two shots that use up a very expensive battery.
;D
I have been planning a Shock & Awe Soldier, and the Shout Projector is going to get a lot of use from me, I think. Nonlethal damage, but it's Explode, so there aren't concerns of actually hitting, and the Demoralize crit effect really goes well with Shock & Awe. Plus, you can install it in a weaponized prosthesis, which basically makes you a walking boombox. Just have to make sure to have options when nonlethal damage won't work.
The higher level shock projectors have the stun quality, not always on nonlethal. AoN is in error.
But those take up too many slots for a weaponized prosthesis.
The higher level shock projectors have the stun quality, not always on nonlethal. AoN is in error.
But those take up too many slots for a weaponized prosthesis.
AoN?
I think you're conflating the Shock Pad and the Shout Projector. The Shock Pads are all Stun weapons, but the Shout Projectors are always Nonlethal. Shock Pads are 1 integrated slot and Shout Projectors are 2.
The higher level shock projectors have the stun quality, not always on nonlethal. AoN is in error.
But those take up too many slots for a weaponized prosthesis.
AoN?
I think you're conflating the Shock Pad and the Shout Projector. The Shock Pads are all Stun weapons, but the Shout Projectors are always Nonlethal. Shock Pads are 1 integrated slot and Shout Projectors are 2.
Archives of Nethys. No, look at the two highest level shout projectors (in the book, not online). They have Stun instead of Nonlethal.
Also, the really high level shout projectors are 4 slots, so only exocortex mechanics could use them as part of their body.
Archives of Nethys. No, look at the two highest level shout projectors (in the book, not online). They have Stun instead of Nonlethal.The higher level shock projectors have the stun quality, not always on nonlethal. AoN is in error.
But those take up too many slots for a weaponized prosthesis.
AoN?
I think you're conflating the Shock Pad and the Shout Projector. The Shock Pads are all Stun weapons, but the Shout Projectors are always Nonlethal. Shock Pads are 1 integrated slot and Shout Projectors are 2.
Oooh. Good to know. My book is at home.
4 slots??? ...I wonder if I could convince a GM to let me get two Weaponized Prosthesises and put my arms together to use the 4-slot integrated weapons. :D
I'm sorry, since when do exocortex mechanics get body slots???
Since armor slot is one of the drone mods they can install in themselves.
And they can take it more than once?
(I'm not really accustomed to exorcortex mechanics making use of drone rules since we've never had a mechanic play that high.)
Armor slot can be taken 4 times, max. The mechanic can apply 4 mods to themselves in total. The big shout projectors take 4 slots.
It actually lines up pretty cleanly.
How long do you think the Echo weapon ability was intended to last?
An echo weapon establishes a lingering sonic resonance within
a target. A creature with blindsense or blindsight (vibration or sound) can detect a target hit by an echo weapon at a distance of up to 10 × its normal range. This does not grant blindsense or blindsight to creatures that do not already have this ability.
There's zero guidance on duration here. If forced to guess I'd say 1 round, but I honestly don't know what they were thinking here.
The Charge Emitter really stands out, I think. An integrated longarm with decent damage that only takes up a single slot? Every android should want one of these.
The Charge Emitter really stands out, I think. An integrated longarm with decent damage that only takes up a single slot? Every android should want one of these.
Good call. The 8th and 13th level options don't lose a significant amount of damage on their competitors (one you take specialization into account) and have a good crit, albeit terrible range. The 18th level one is a lot harder to justify. Definitely worth a look if you're in the appropriate level range and looking for a ranged backup to your two handed melee build.
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I'm a bit shocked by how good the sopranino singing disk is. It's like the Called Starknife, except this one targets EAC and does Sonic damage, but still adding Strength and Weapon Specialization. And easily available at level 1.
With how tuned the AC math is, targeting EAC instead of KAC makes up for a big difference in damage die. I'm having trouble not using this weapon over almost all others for melee builds.
It doesn’t make up enough of a difference. The level 19 star knife does 73%more damage than the singing disk without specialization, 44% if wielded by a 20th level character. The to hit difference doesn’t help much, but resistances might.
Note that a few published monster have KAC equal to or even less than EAC.
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I think it does. Level 20 is fairly meaningless for damage, because most of the game isn't played at level 20. At levels 1-16, the singing disk really dominates. Consider:
* Sonic damage is not often resisted.
* EAC is 2 lower on almost all monsters, NPCs and PCs. There are only very few exceptions.
* At level 1 these things do the same base damage, same range, almost the same cost. But one of them is just better. Both of them are doing 1d4+4 if you have Strength 18, but one of them just hits more often. And it continues that way until you can buy higher grades.
* The L6 singing disk becomes available sooner. It's got lower average damage (3.5 vs. 10) but your static bonus from strength, gear boost and weapon specialization at level 6 can already be +15 so all you really care about is hitting. And it costs only half the price of a L8 starknife.
* At level 11-12 we're looking at 10.5 sonic damage vs. 18 piercing+fire damage. Having two damage types also opens you up to two different resistances so it's not an advantage. And the static damage can be 21 at level 11, so we still mostly care about hitting (or hitting with both attacks on a full attack!) Meanwhile the starknife costs twice as much as the singing disk for... what?
* At level 16 the damage difference is 24.5 vs. 36, at 30% higher cost so at least that ratio makes sense. But the static damage can be 27 so we still mostly care about hitting as much as we can, so the EAC still dominates.
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Ascalaphus, I remember having the EXACT same impressions when I checked out the singing disk myself! But running the math shows that the damage and accuracy differences with the singing disk and the starknife are actually a wash.
A Soldier's full attack accuracy on each hit is roughly 50% until they get Soldier's Onslaught and 40% after that (assuming they're fighting equal-level foes). So hitting EAC rather than KAC bumps that to 60% and 50%, adding effectively 20% and 25% to your damage per round.
What that means is that from levels 1-10, an energy weapon attack needs to deal at least 83% of the kinetic weapon attack's damage/hit to break even. From 11-20th levels, that becomes 80%.
Looking at your examples:
The BIG benefits are really the price and damage type.
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A couple more subtle benefits:
* L6 singing disk becomes available 2 levels earlier than the L8 starknife. The L8 starknife is really really painfully late, because at some point you need to start adding fusions to handle DR. Six levels of fusions is plenty; you can fit in Holy, Called, Returning and 2 other things. And it's cheaper than adding the exact same fusions to a L8 weapon.
* At low levels, resistance to sonic is exceptionally rare, but DR 5/Slashing or 5/Bludgeoning is entirely possible. This causes major trouble for the starknife.
* The Holy fusion is really sweet. It penetrates DR/good, and ignores all energy resistance of evil undead, dragons and outsiders. So for the starknife, it doesn't handle all DR on those creatures, just DR/good. But for the singing disk, it does completely handle sonic resistance. If you're marrying your staknife, you probably want it to be adamantine, disruptive and holy. The half-price singing disk just needs to be holy.
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So, I'm not saying the starknife became hopeless; but I think the singing disk gives you a LOT, and doesn't pay all that much for it in comparison.
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If you're marrying your staknife, you probably want it to be adamantine, disruptive and holy. The half-price singing disk just needs to be holy.
You can't put disruptive on a Starknife. It doesn't deal bludgeoning damage.
For the mid to high level F&P damage starknives, to achieve the results you're looking for, holy fusion plus either corrosive, frost, shock, or thundering fusion is probably the better way to go. Convert the piercing to an elemental damage type and it gains the same benefit from the holy fusion as the singing disk.
Plus, that combination also has applications against non-evil targets. You have the option to pick 2 out of 3 damage types to apply (for example Piercing, Fire, and Acid - you can avoid any one of those resistances or DR if the target resists only 1 thing).
Holy is a good fusion, but its very campaign specific. I would think its quite possible for a character to rarely encounter those types of enemies, or possibly never. On the other hand, some campaigns might have every other fight be against those types of enemies.
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If you're marrying your staknife, you probably want it to be adamantine, disruptive and holy. The half-price singing disk just needs to be holy.You can't put disruptive on a Starknife. It doesn't deal bludgeoning damage.
Right. Piercing seems to be the worst damage type. Underwater adaptation is fairly easy to come by (or just use a sonic weapon).
For the mid to high level F&P damage starknives, to achieve the results you're looking for, holy fusion plus either corrosive, frost, shock, or thundering fusion is probably the better way to go. Convert the piercing to an elemental damage type and it gains the same benefit from the holy fusion as the singing disk.
Plus, that combination also has applications against non-evil targets. You have the option to pick 2 out of 3 damage types to apply (for example Piercing, Fire, and Acid - you can avoid any one of those resistances or DR if the target resists only 1 thing).
I like that technique, but Shock and Frost are level 5 fusions and the others are level 9, so it's very hard to stuff multiple into one weapon.
This is where I insist that problems in the early game are really problems; for the first 4-6 levels the singing disk is overwhelmingly better than the starknife, and a majority of campaigns do start out at low level, so everyone runs into that balance issue.
Holy is a good fusion, but its very campaign specific. I would think its quite possible for a character to rarely encounter those types of enemies, or possibly never. On the other hand, some campaigns might have every other fight be against those types of enemies.
In Pathfinder a handful of creature types are very common - fiends, constructs and undead can sit waiting for heroes to come to their dungeon without dying of old age. Intelligent undead and fiends also make for good BBEGs because they have the motivation and capability to come up with a plot and run an organization/thralls. Dragons also although nobody really wants to brag about epically killing a kindergarten dragon so those tend to come into play much later.
Starfinder definitely has a wider range of creatures to work with, alien flora justifies more interesting plants and weird deep space aberrations are also more a thing. And all of those could have elemental defences and DR based on their native habitat. So you're right that Holy doesn't solve all your problems.
And still, Starfinder is also "Pathfinder in Space!!!" so I expect (and have seen) a lot of undead. Fiends have been rare, but undead are much more socialized (thanks Eox) and can be active in many places.
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Phasing ammunition (longarms and snipers only, sorry heavy weapons) can shoot through cover of hardness 10 (item level 7) or 20 (item level 14) if you take a move action to aim, allowing you to bypass the cover.
A Clarity Scope (level 12) gives you sense through one object to see a target, out to your scope improved (so 4x for longarm/heavy weapon) range increment.
That means if you use these together you can see targets through walls (no concealment) out to ranges of 400' or so (with a longarm, much further for a sniper) and shoot through them (no cover) if the hardness is 20 or less. That's steel, concrete, stone, wood, etc. Only starship materials and adamantine alloys would stop high level phasing rounds.
The cheaper level 7 rounds can still shoot through transparent aluminum, so typical window materials become vulnerable to this, and you wouldn't need the scope to see your target.
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The cluster launcher grenade launchers are surprisingly good for delivering cheap grenades that have save or suck effects. They apply the item level of the launcher, not the grenade, to the save DC and boost the radius as well at the cost of two grenades per shot.
So a level 12 cluster launcher, advanced could launch two level 1 Stickybomb Grenades, mk 1, at a total cost of 340 credits, and get a save DC based on level 12 instead of level 1, plus a total radius of 20'. Anyone who fails the save suffers 2d4 rounds of entangle. The level 2 stagger grenade is a similar cost, a pair of level 2 blind for 1d4 grenades are only 550 credits.
With a gunner's harness accessory you could even full attack at only a -2 DC penalty on both effects, and you could mix them up, trying to both entangle and blind on the same round for a total cost of 890 credits. Not bad at higher levels if your soldier is looking for a long range AOE debuff option.
One nice thing about stagger and blind effects on grenades is they shift what is ordinarily a fortitude save to a reflex save. Blind and entangle seem the best mix of impact and duration if you're going to try this.
Nice!
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I think the igniter weapons have a potential fringe use for characters who have lots of money and longarms proficiency but don't want to spend a feat on versatile specialization. Djezet and the potent fusion add +3 to the already difficult initial DC, and probably to the subsequent burn checks as well.
Works extra well if you combo with reflex save suppressers. A technomancer with Mental Mark hack (8th) could cast Baleful Polymorph as his opener. If it works the target takes a -2 to AC and all saves next round, plus a lasting penalty to reflex saves from Baleful Polymorph. Easy to hit with the ignite weapon, and it's very very likely to fail that first save. (You could also put a Spellshot on the hit even if it makes the save, I guess.)
At higher levels the Malediction fusion (9th level, lets you cast Bestow Curse on a hit target as a reaction) would make this the ultimate save or suck combo.
Round 1: Baleful Polymorph with Mental Mark to debuff.
Round 2: Shoot with the igniter weapon, trigger Malediction fusion (benefits from djezet/Potent and your Mental Mark -2 to saves)
Round 3: Put on your sunglasses and walk away, cool guys don't watch their enemies burn to death behind them. Or intimidate them to suppress their saves further. And do you or an ally have Cruel fusion on a weapon?
(Yeah, I said it was fringe.)
I'm interested in the singing disk, partly for the reasons discussed above. I'm curious how people envision it. Is there a picture of the weapon or of a character wielding the weapon?
It is a melee weapon. The rules state it is a melee weapon is a "handheld weapon that must touch a target to deal damage." But it is dealing sonic damage. How does a weapon that has to touch the target to deal damage transmit sonic damage? Sound can travel through solids and liquids, so this would seem to imply that the disk vibrates and the sonic energy transfers through the solid disk into the hit target. So I would think it would be the size of a frisbee or discus but with a hole in the center to make it easier to wield without throwing it.
The description suggests it makes audible sounds when used in attacks: "When the weapon is swung or thrown, the perforations cause the air flowing through them to vibrate with a range of sonic frequencies like hundreds of voices singing simultaneously. The disks can sound quite lovely, but the sonic frequencies they create are unforgiving to the body and inner ear, and can muddle the mind."
So if the weapon has to touch the target and the wielder is holding the weapon, how does the weapon not do sonic damage to the one wielding the weapon?
The other way to interpret this is that the weapon doesn't technically need to strike the target to do damage. The weapon must just move close enough to the target for the sound to be intense enough to do damage. This would eliminate the question of the weapon doing damage to the wielder.
Or does the weapon have to touch the torso or head where vital organs take the brunt of the sonic damage, but the wielder's organs are not affected.
How to those who use this weapon envision the weapon working?
By the way, I think this is a great weapon to add the returning weapon fusion.