Post-Armory, it's not obvious that actual Mystics and Technomancers have many important niches that can't be replaced by the expenditure of enough money. Leave aside spell amps, there are plenty of non-expendable options. With enough money, a properly themed(biotechnician)/archetyped(augmented or arcanium sage)/race(Android or Verthani) combo with lots of augmentations, worm magic/hybrid items, and installed armor upgrades could accomplish an amazing array of tricks that we traditionally think of as spell abilities.
Flight? There are armor upgrades for jet packs and force packs, augmentations like ultralight wings, force soles (walk on air), and the gravitational harness.
AOE elemental damage? Plenty of explode/blast weapon options. They do less damage, but are more sustainable and can provide some capabilities (critical effects, elemental combos, fusion modifications) that spells can't.
Invisibility? Cloaking skin augmentation, grandchild's cloak armor mod. The displacement field armor mod also gives a 50% miss chance without invisibility.
Hide from magic/cameras? The privacy shield armor mod gives nondetection, the furtive garments magic item hides magic auras on and disguises armor and clothing.
Mind control? Control mirror neurons magitech augmentation allows you to dominate person, psychoactive eyes allow charm person/fascinate, an enchanting vocal modulator can use suggestion on up to four people. There's even holding gloves magic items for hold person/monster now.
Illusion? Holographic eyes allow you to project them elsewhere (infinitely, limited only by concentration) and there are a lot of personal illusion options, including a mirror image armor mod, in addition to the invisibility/displacement options mentioned above. For disguises the morphic skin augmentation is better than magic, because it can't be seen through and makes actual physical changes.
Travel? There is one (expendable) magic item, one augmentation, and one armor mod that give dimension door. There is a headband that gives teleportation. There is an armor mod that gives ethereal jaunt, as well as a technological coverall.
Summoning? Have a summoning hybrid grenade combined with a fusion that lets you use one grenade for free every day. Also Figurines of Wondrous Power for monster summoning.
Healing? There is an armor mod and an augmentation to let you recover HP when you recover stamina. There's the nanite hypopen technological items to do condition removal (costly and expendable, but less so than buying the spells). There's even that resurrection device in core for bringing back the dead.
Seeing magic? Arcane lenses augmentation.
Rerolls? Too many magic and hybrid items to mention.
Dispelling magic? The dispelling hand augmentation.
Force effects? Force palms augmentations let you generate a resilient sphere for capturing someone or personal defense.
Temporary HP? Forcefield armor mods.
Telepathy? A headband. There's even an augmentation that can hear limited telepathy between others.
Magical defenses? DR/energy resistance is available from armor mods and augmentations and some tech items (grounding boots). SR is available from both as well. Don't forget the spell reflector armor mod, and there's the captive star amulet magic item that offers counterspelling and potential reflecting as well.
Vision and surveillance? C'mon.
Destruction of barriers or items? Beyond the many weapon options, there's now entropy gloves magic items to let you cast entropic grasp up to three times every day.
Telekinesis? Telekinetic gloves. Also the psychonkinetic sleeve augmentation. And the carter's baton tech item.
Memory alteration? Memory expunger tech item.
Wall/barrier construction? The flash shield generator tech item.
And so on. What spell niches are left? Mind probes? Divination? "Free" replacements for expendable healing resources?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Divinations and the fact that you can do all those things without spending money by spending a spell slot.
But that's part of the system. Technology can do anything magic can and vice versa. (occasionally the magic doesn's stack up, but...)
You can use interplanetary teleport to go most places in the galaxy, or you can fly your ship there. You can cast a heal spell, or visit some sort of automated surgery suite, etc.
You shouldn't need any one particular class to do anything. As much as I love playing clerics and the spell lists wizards get in pathfinder, I enjoy the fact that a party can consist of anything and everything in starfinder and still fill all those roles, just sometimes they need to buy an item they wouldn't have needed with the other classes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is partly mitigated by the 2 magic item/hybrid item limit, but as you said, plenty of biotech/tech/magitech to go around that.
Which is a good thing. There's so much less of the "tiered" classes when everyone has access to the cool stuff. This is exaclty why there aren't spellcasting restrictions on armour, or (with the exception of Trick Attack) weapons restricted to specific classes.
Classes and choice become less about what you CAN'T do, and more about what you CAN do.
Exactly what Metaphysician said. Also, some of those augments or mods you mentioned are very limited... Displacement is 10 rounds per day, takes a move action to start and stop. A caster could do that multiple times per day, without giving up 1/4-1/7 of their other options.
You can probably duplicate any one set of powers/abilities with gear, by investing everything you can; but that caster can change things up and now you have 10% of your gear value to try to keep up. The caster also gets all that gear in addition, too.