The latest AP has some new player option feats, spells, and one theme.
Feats
1. Craven Ploy: As a reaction, you can get a +2 to AC against an attack if an adjacent ally will accept a -2 to AC until their next turn.
This works well if you delay or otherwise arrange initiative orders so that the penalty barely lasts for your ally. Also if they're invisible or benefiting from some miss chance that makes the penalty less onerous.
2. Indirect Retreat: When you run it doesn't have to be in a straight line, you can run across difficult terrain, and you aren't flat footed when you run.
The difficult terrain thing provides some interesting options for escaping melee combat, the no straight line requirement makes getting into cover, full cover, or ambush position around a corner much easier at the start of combat.
3. Startled Scream: Scream as a combat starts to warn your allies (and yourself). If you or allies would have been surprised, you're not flat footed. If you're/they're not surprised, get a +1 insight to initiative. But there's a price - you might draw others with your scream, and you're shaken until the end of your next turn.
Shaken is a pretty bad condition, probably only worth it if the whole party is being surprised by multiple enemies. And better if you're a spellcaster and not attacking physically on your turn.
4. Steel Nerves: Bonus to fear saving throws, you can choose to fight when you're frightened, and you can hold on to stuff when you're panicked.
Good in a horror campaign, pretty limited otherwise. It doesn't give you any benefit against intimidation, the most common fear effect.
5. Wary Withdrawal: Combine Total Defense with one withdrawal move action.
Good combo with mobility (a prereq) if you're escaping from multiple melee enemies or deep within someone's reach. Not sure this is the feat you want if you're in that situation enough to take this feat, though.
Spells
All the spells are available to both Mystics and Technomancers.
1. Nightmare: Level 3, wakes up a sleeping target, makes them frightened, and gives saves every hour to let them go back to sleep.
More thematic than useful, the odds of someone saving enough consecutive saves to miss out on a night's sleep and suffer the effects are...not good.
2. Paranoia: Level 2, a single target treats everyone as an ally, takes all AoOs it can, and is shaken if adjacent to 2+ others.
Second level will save spells compete with Daze Monster, Fear, and Hold Person. I guess this works if you're expecting to fight lots of packs of mobile opponents who will trigger AoOs from each other. Do you?
3. Shadow Body: Level 5, gives you concealment in dim light/darkness, or total concealment if opponents don't have darkvision, and you're incorporeal for defensive purposes. But you can't move through things or attack with weapons. You can cast spells. 1 minute per level!
Immunity to mundane weapons is a big deal against natural attacking enemies, 50% immunity to spells and energy/magic weapons is very goodd, and the ability to still attack with spells is pretty sweet. The concealment is whatever, unless your GM rules that darkvision creatures can only see you if you're within their darkvision range. But a strict reading suggests that any darkvision at all lets them see you at any range.
Theme
Paranormal Investigator: Choose among five investigative skills for your bonus skill, and that determines your bonus attribute point. Pick a case to solve the way a bounter hunter chooses a target to hunt, and get bonuses on knowledge/gather information checks related to that case until you finish it and pick a new one.
6th level: Half time to search, gather information, or take 20 recalling knowledge. Plus one reroll per day on a failed perception, sense motive, or theme skill check.
12th level: Some clue around that you could find if you took 20 on Perception or your chosen theme skill? The GM has to tell you there's something around. It's up to you to find it.
18th level: An always available 10 minute resolve recovery method, or take 1 hour to do it and combine it with a gather information check.
Verdict: Pretty good! Flexiblity on the class skill is great, and this definitely makes information gathering easier. Nothing is super situational or fringe.
Strong, but limited.
*waits impatiently for a 2nd level blast spell for technomancers that isn't outright worse than magic missile*
Wary Withdrawl and the Paranormal Investigator theme sound good to me!
The latest AP has some new player option feats, spells, and one theme.
Feats
3. Startled Scream: Scream as a combat starts to warn your allies (and yourself). If you or allies would have been surprised, you're not flat footed. If you're/they're not surprised, get a +1 insight to initiative. But there's a price - you might draw others with your scream, and you're shaken until the end of your next turn.
Shaken is a pretty bad condition, probably only worth it if the whole party is being surprised by multiple enemies. And better if you're a spellcaster and not attacking physically on your turn.
Startled Scream is effectively on my top ten worst feats in Starfinder list. They should of ditched the int bonus and just made this an action one character can choose to make. Eliminating the unnecessary feat taxed tied to simply screaming. I mean how long does it take to scream, more than 6 seconds? Everything else is gravy, absolutely wonderful additions, the spells, other feats, and the theme are all healthy add-ons to Starfinder especially for horror.
That feat is.. not bad. You take a -2 to hit for one round and in return your entire party doesn't get +2 to be hit for a round.
I say not bad and not great because its not the flat footed condition that won't let you take AoOs anymore, its just that you can't take reactions until you've acted. That and bad guys have a LOT of hit so I'm a little skeptical of applying penalties.
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I think your looking at the feats too mechanically, and not thematically enough for a horror campaign.
Indirect Retreat: isn’t for getting into cover, it’s for legging it from the Xenomorph/Jason/Kruger that will 100% kill you. Winding corridors and obsticables that would slow your down are a classic trope of Horror and this feat works with that perfectly
Craven Ploy: your playing Burke from Aliens. You’ll sacrifice the guy in front of you to not get hit. Sadly the consent bit means you’ll need a good aligned character that wants the keep you safe to make it effective. Although the RP potential for a scene after you use it constantly could be interesting.
Startled Scream: again a classic horror trope of the person with an ear piercing wail the second anything slightly scary happens. I don’t even think using it should be optional once taken. It’s just a quirk of personality. Makes once again for good role play.
The other feats, spells and theme are similar. I loved it from a role playing perspective for the thematic feel of a horror campaign. The overall use of it in other campaigns hadn’t really occurred to me. I am a huge horror film/game fan and love the opportunity’s in game for decent role playing and scene building a lot of these updates give.
My only complaint is that these “personally” feats come in a lvl7 campaign where these quirks should be already established.
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Totally agree. Too many looking at mechanics and not thematics.
Bad options have always been defensible for thematic reasons, nothing new there. The challenge is to make something generally useful out of things designed with a narrow thematic intent.
LOL at the idea of taking a feat because your combat strategy is to run away all the time. Hope the whole party took it!
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The thematic elements of these feats seem misapplied to me. Or perhaps it's the mechanics.
These are almost all tactical mechanics, not thematic reactionary mechanics.
As has been stated, these will likely be used proactively by most players (such as using Wary Withdrawal to get into an optimal position rather than running away) rather than for what the theme emplies (running away).
A feats mechanics should really support its theme and vice versa.
That being said, I really like these feats.
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It's unlikely you will ever double move again once you get this feat.
It's unlikely you will ever double move again once you get this feat.I dunno if it allows you to run-swim or run-climb if you don't have those speeds directly?
Not sure about nonstandard forms of movement.
Also there's withdrawal and guarded step+move/move+guarded step.
None of which are double move actions. A double move is always move move.
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It's unlikely you will ever double move again once you get this feat.Also there's withdrawal and guarded step+move/move+guarded step.None of which are double move actions. A double move is always move move.
So... what? Is that something we should be concerned about? A feat does something. Yay.
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Anyone with that feat has got to go fast it seems.