The first question I have come across is whether or not Biohackers can full-attack with injections.
Maybe?
Each day, you must spend 10 minutes to prepare the ingredients for a number of injections equal to your biohacker level + your key ability score modifier. This preparation time includes only readying the compounds and chemicals you need to make your injections, and you decide the specific injection you create as part of the standard action you take to attack with it or inject a creature with it (see below)
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An injection can also be loaded into a weapon with the injection weapon special property as a move action, and you can deliver the injection with a normal attack with that weapon.
Now the highlighted part seems to indicate a standard action to fire an injection and, perhaps critically, choose its effect. The move action just seems to put your generic injection which you haven't yet assigned characteristics to inside your weapon.
Then we have this:
As a standard action, you can load one of your injections into a weapon with the injection weapon special property and attack with that injection.
Ok, load, shoot (and determine properties) as a standard action. But what happens if I just load all of my injections in a weapon in advance, carrying them in darts in a gun's magazine rather than on my person?
This points the way:
As a standard action, you can load a number of injections equal to your key ability score modifier into a weapon with the injection special property (up to the weapon’s maximum capacity). As part of that action, you can make one attack with the weapon. You must know the quick load theorem to choose this theorem.
What would be the purpose of this if loading extra injections into your weapon didn't mean you couldn't full attack with them later? But then what good are Quick Load and Improved Quick Load, really? They only seem to give you flexibility between deciding late in the game whether you want to do melee or ranged injections. (And I think you maybe can't recover an injection from your weapon once it's loaded to then use it as a melee application.)
So I think if you want to you could load all of your days injections right into your gun, commit to ranged delivery, and full attack to your heart's content. The biggest downside is that you probably want to mix up regular damaging shots with your scarce injections, and swapping weapons may be more hassle than using Quick Load in combat.
Is Spark of Ingenuity meant to extend the duration of a studious biohacker's counteragents to equal his full key ability score modifier, rather than the usual half?
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Also, does field dressing not work on unconscious creatures? It says “Adjacent WILLING creature,” and I recall reading somewhere that unconcious creatures aren’t considered willing unless stated otherwise so. . .
Vesk drops unconcious, starts bleeding out.
Biohacker: “Obozaya! Do I have permission to perform medicine to save your life?”
Obozaya gurgles
Biohacker: “Oh well I tried. Anyone want some drugs?”
Obozaya dies.
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Starfinder Design Lead
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Also, does field dressing not work on unconscious creatures? It says “Adjacent WILLING creature,” and I recall reading somewhere that unconcious creatures aren’t considered willing unless stated otherwise so. . .
That will get updated to say "willing or unconscious"
I'm really digging the concept of the Biohacker, but I had a few queries...
You must hit an unwilling creature with a melee attack to inject them with an injection, and an injection counts as a consumable basic melee weapon for this purpose.
Question: If I make a melee attack to inject with an injection and miss, is the injection expended? If it's not expended, is the type determined (i.e., if I attempt another melee attack to inject the target on my next turn, can I still decide what type the injection is as part of that standard action)?
An injection can also be loaded into a weapon with the injection weapon special property as a move action, and you can deliver the injection with a normal attack with that weapon.
Question: How does this interact with the conserving fusion (Armory pg. 62), which causes your weapon to not consume ammunition that misses that target? Is just the dart conserved, or the dart and the injection?
Question: This one isn't directly based on the Biohacker's class abilities, but is sure to come up eventually. What freely available equipment can be loaded into a weapon with the injection property? Poisons, drugs, and medicinals are explicitly called out in the CRB, but what about serums? The flavor text for darts (the ammunition) suggests yes, but the description of serums indicates that you can only imbibe them orally. And what about spell amps? Their descriptive text outlines them as delivered by injection, but no injection weapons or ammunition reference them.
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Here's a question:
Additionally, as long as you have access to your custom scanner, you can use Life Science or Physical Science instead of Mysticism to make serums (for more about crafting items, see page 235 of the Core Rulebook).
So do you still need an arcane labratory/workbench to make serums? In other words, to make a healing serum mk. 1, do you need an arcane labratory AND your custom scanner? Just your custom scanner? Synthesis bay and your Scanner?
It only mentions changing the skill required - how would one piece of cheap gear replace an entire expansion bay/lodging?
CRB 235
"A player character can create all the items presented in
this chapter as long as he has the skills, materials, tools, and
time needed to construct it. He must have a number of ranks
in the appropriate skill equal to the item level of the item to
be created.
For magic
fusions and magic items, the appropriate skill is Mysticism.
Crafting items requires you to have access to tools and a
workshop or similar space. Most starships have an appropriate
area set aside, and such space can be rented at the same price
as lodgings in major cities (with the size of the lodging being
equivalent to the size of the workshop, which limits the size of
items that can be constructed and how many people can work
on a single item at one time)."
LODGING | PRICE
Efficiency | 3 per night
Suite, 1–2 beds | 5 per night per bed
Suite, 3–4 beds | 10 per night per bed
Here's a question:
So do you still need an arcane labratory/workbench to make serums? In other words, to make a healing serum mk. 1, do you need an arcane labratory AND your custom scanner? Just your custom scanner? Synthesis bay and your Scanner?
Additionally, as long as you have access to your custom scanner, you can use Life Science or Physical Science instead of Mysticism to make serums (for more about crafting items, see page 235 of the Core Rulebook).
Note that while you need (poorly defined) facilities to craft, you do NOT need the specific expansion bays you reference here to craft on a starship. A basic starship is assumed to have basic crafting facilities, the dedicated expansion bays just cut your time in half.
Where you can craft off a ship is a GM call and where this ability for the custom scanner could come in very useful.
I'm really digging the concept of the Biohacker, but I had a few queries...
You must hit an unwilling creature with a melee attack to inject them with an injection, and an injection counts as a consumable basic melee weapon for this purpose.Question: If I make a melee attack to inject with an injection and miss, is the injection expended? If it's not expended, is the type determined (i.e., if I attempt another melee attack to inject the target on my next turn, can I still decide what type the injection is as part of that standard action)?
An injection can also be loaded into a weapon with the injection weapon special property as a move action, and you can deliver the injection with a normal attack with that weapon.Question: How does this interact with the conserving fusion (Armory pg. 62), which causes your weapon to not consume ammunition that misses that target? Is just the dart conserved, or the dart and the injection?
Question: This one isn't directly based on the Biohacker's class abilities, but is sure to come up eventually. What freely available equipment can be loaded into a weapon with the injection property? Poisons, drugs, and medicinals are explicitly called out in the CRB, but what about serums? The flavor text for darts (the ammunition) suggests yes, but the description of serums indicates that you can only imbibe them orally. And what about spell amps? Their descriptive text outlines them as delivered by injection, but no injection weapons or ammunition reference them.
serums work I believe it was called out early that you could use injection weapons to heal people by shooting them with a healing serum. It also is why it is important that biohackers can chose to NOT do damage when using their stuff on allies.
"Each field’s breakthrough ability
functions as an injection, but using a breakthrough doesn’t expend one
of your injections’ daily uses."
Injections are broken into restoratives and counteragents.
For Protective Restoration it gains a benefit for "Any restorative you successfully use on an ally".
If you use a breakthrough on an ally, would it gains the benefit of Protective Restoration?
...
And can we get clarification on loading a pistol with injections and then full attacking?
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A couple of questions came up during my playtest of the Biohacker at the weekend.
Does the Conserving Fusion work with the Biohackers Injections ability?
The description of the infusion states the ammunition is not consumed as though the weapon has never been fired and specifically lists darts as a type of ammunition that is affected.
The rules under Injections however don’t say how long the injections last after you have made them. It does say you mix the injection as part of the standard action you take to attack with it or inject a creature so it’s possible the injection only lasts for that standard action. However, in the section on regaining daily uses it comments that when you regain your daily uses any injections you created early but didn’t use becomes inert, even if still in your possession. This implies that injections would last longer than the standard action you take to create and use them.
If it functions for Biohacker injections, then is has quite an impact upon the class as in practice it means that misses no longer use up one of your injection uses per day as you can continue to try to use the injection you made until you successfully hit. This makes the conserving fusion pretty close to mandatory once you can use it.
Do conditions inflicted by your injections escalate?
Many of the conditions that the field of study allows you to inflict on your target as a counteragent cause conditions some of which can escalate into a more serious condition if they receive the same condition again. For example: If someone who is already fatigued is fatigued again, this escalates to and they become exhausted.
The specific example in play was an opponent that was already suffering from fatigue was hit by a fatigue causing counteragent due to the Enzymology field of study. Do they therefore become exhausted as per the description of fatigue in the core rulebook?
Although there is nothing to indicate that they don’t become exhausted, it is rare that player character abilities cause this kind of escalation so we weren’t sure if this was intended.
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Painful Injection (Ex)
When you hit an enemy with a weapon with the injection weapon special property, you can cause pain in that creature’s muscles (or their equivalent). The target takes an amount of additional damage equal to half your key ability score modifier (minimum 1). If you hit an enemy multiple times with a weapon with the injection special property, this damage does not stack, although a creature could be affected by multiple biohackers’ painful injections.
So is this supposed to only deal the extra damage once per round or once per target period?
If something isn't called out as a poison effect, is it not a poison effect? I would have assumed that anything messing with your DNA would count as that if some injections called them out and some of them didn't.
Is there a definition of living creature floating around? Humanoids are obviously living, undead and robots are not, what about elementals?
It's "unliving" in the Alien Archive.
The creature has no Constitution score or modifier. Any DCs or other statistics that rely on a Constitution score treat the creature as having a score of 10 (+0). The creature is immediately destroyed when it reaches 0 Hit Points. An unliving creature doesn’t heal damage naturally, but a construct can be repaired with the right tools. Spells such as make whole can heal constructs, and magic effects can heal undead. An unliving creature with fast healing (see page 154) still benefits from that ability. Unliving creatures don’t breathe, eat, or sleep. They can’t be raised or resurrected, except through the use of miracle, wish, or a similar effect that specifically works on unliving creatures.
Format: Other Abilities unliving.
Constructs and undead are flagged as unliving. Nothing else is.
The basic restorative can give someone a "+10-foot enhancement bonus to their speed."
Does this mean land speed only or do i choose one type or is it +10 to all speeds?
In my test the character was using a hydrojet armor upgrade (that gives you a swim speed of half your land speed) and it was very unclear if that bonus works on that or not.
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Starfinder Design Lead
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The basic restorative can give someone a "+10-foot enhancement bonus to their speed."
Does this mean land speed only or do i choose one type or is it +10 to all speeds?
In my test the character was using a hydrojet armor upgrade (that gives you a swim speed of half your land speed) and it was very unclear if that bonus works on that or not.
Core Rulebook, page 255, under "Speed."
"If a rule references speed without specifying a movement type, it refers to whatever movement type you are using."
This doesn’t end the effect that caused the condition, and the target can regain the condition from any source as normal. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your key ability score modifier.
This language keeps coming up in things that suppress sickened. How exactly does this work? If someone is diseased is it useless to remove sickened because the disease will put it right back or are they good until something else infects them? Good till the next saving throw?
Painful Injection (Ex)
When you hit an enemy with a weapon with the injection weapon special property, you can cause pain in that creature’s muscles (or their equivalent). The target takes an amount of additional damage equal to half your key ability score modifier (minimum 1). If you hit an enemy multiple times with a weapon with the injection special property, this damage does not stack, although a creature could be affected by multiple biohackers’ painful injections.
So you can only hit someone once with the extra damage? (describing damage from multiple hits as stacking is kinda weird)
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Labeling the breakthroughs as breakthroughs would be really handy. Rather than just an exceptional ability sitting there that looks like you can do it until you read something that references a breakthrough that references the field of study.
Re loading the injections into my six shooter. How exactly does this work?
A) I load in 3 injections and three regular darts. I decide what the injections do when i fire them
B) I load in 3 injections, declaring them to be counter agents and decide which ones when I fire them
C) I load in 3 injections and have to declare specifically what they do when I load them (chamber 1 takes 2 off ac, chamber 2 gives 10 feet of move enhancement, chamber 3 gives vulnerability)
D) The counteragent won't activate at all unless I spend a move action to load it, finish making it, turn it on as a move action and then immediately fire it as a standard. (or do all of this as a standard action with Quickload) I can only load up 1 injection at a time and have to fire it immediately for it to work.
E) something else
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From watching the twitch the answer was C
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From watching the twitch the answer was C
Ok, but you can just choose which one to fire, at least:
Playtest page 4
"When you fire
a weapon with the injection special property and you have multiple
types of ammunition loaded into the weapon, you choose which type of
ammunition you fire when you attempt the attack."
Seems balanced. You can do a total attack, but the injections must be prepared ahead.
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I'm picturing transparent aluminum six shooters you spin to the right chamber with your thumb before firing. Judge dreads call up ammo would work too.
"We're all gonna die!"
Gun: "Loading Spark of ingenuity round. Have a nice day."
So, how does Painful Injection now stack or not stack?
As far as I can tell, a creature can be the subject of 1 Painful Injections per Biohacker, period, forever.
It isn't clear, though. Damage "stacking" is not a term that is commonly used.
I don't think it would be very overpowered if it were 1 painful injection per biohacker per round. A slight discouragement to full attacks, but not a serious damage reduction in boss fights, either.
I feel like the "stack" language was a refugee from a earlier draft where you had an ability to multiply damage from injection weapons innately. Say you automatically double the dice damage from an injection glove with a particular 1/combat ability; the painful injections wouldn't stack on itself.
That's the only thing I can figure. It needs to be rewritten.
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So I just played an 8th level biohacker and ran into an interesting interaction that leads to a question.
Interaction: When a biohacker aims at an ally, the ally is treated as being flat-footed. The ally has a class ability that prevents them from being flat-footed.
Question: Does the biohacker still fire vs the ally's flat-footed AC?
I am pretty sure the bio hacker thing still works there. It treats the ally as if they are flat footed but it does not actually make the ally flat footed. Basically its a way to model that if your buddy knows you can inject them with stuff to help them out they are not actively trying to dodge or evade what you are doing and may actually be presenting their body in a way that makes it easier for you to hit them.
So under "painful injection" it stats if you hit a foe multiple times with a weapon with the injection property, the damage doesn't stack. Well what if you hit a foe with two different injection weapons? It doesn't say when you hit a foe with one or more injection weapons, just when you make multiple attacks with a singular injection weapon.
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I am pretty sure the painful injection thing is so that you are not getting the boosted damage during a full attack. But makes a single attack round more viable damage wise.
I am pretty sure the painful injection thing is so that you are not getting the boosted damage during a full attack. But makes a single attack round more viable damage wise.
It would certainly make painclaws more attractive, as they are unwieldy.
I have yet to see a for-sure answer on Painful Injections from Owen, though. It would be nice to have that clarified, because I'll be playing a melee Biohacker on Saturday and I'd like to know if I should go for the painclaw or the ice needle.
I don't understand why you have to make an attack against an ally. When I cast a touch spell on an ally, I don't have to hit his EAC. Why does the Biohacker needs to target KAC when using a restoration on an ally with a range weapon and not with a melee one. For me, all of that is too messy, and should be removed. Affecting an ally should be automatic.
I don't understand why you have to make an attack against an ally. When I cast a touch spell on an ally, I don't have to hit his EAC. Why does the Biohacker needs to target KAC when using a restoration on an ally with a range weapon and not with a melee one. For me, all of that is too messy, and should be removed. Affecting an ally should be automatic.
Buffing an ally at range is more powerful than buffing at point blank. There is a case to be made that you need to be able to at least make the shot and puncture the armor, or else the needle gets blunted and the injection doesn't happen.
Buffing an ally at range is more powerful than buffing at point blank. There is a case to be made that you need to be able to at least make the shot and puncture the armor, or else the needle gets blunted and the injection doesn't happen.
Same at melee range.
The game doesn't take into consideration that hitting a target at range is harder than hitting it at point blank. Why would injections take that into account?And honestly, the way it is right now, I would never shoot at an ally. The chances to miss are too high and the benefit too low to make the maneuver a viable option.
When I playtested, the only ally I had any problems hitting was an AC maxed Vanguard. I still hit on a 13+ under the assumption that I didn't get the flat-footed benefit. I think that many of the critiques are armchair theorists and not people actually playing.
Bonuses to hit for biohacker, especially early on, usually provide really good chances to hit on allies but eventually AC keeps going up while your bonuses to hit don't scale anywhere near as effectively. This means as you approach higher levels the odds of you hitting your allies becomes less and less. Even in your scenario, while it is a vanguard, you have less than a 50% chance to hit the vanguard. Flat Footed provides a -2 to AC so effectively you are hitting at a +11.
It is only going to be more difficult from there. I played a game where we went from 1-20 and our players had anywhere between 37-42 AC by the end. This isn't armchair theory but actual gameplay and I can tell you that unless you take the theorem to increase your attack by +3 and have at least a +8 from your dex you aren't going to be reliably hitting your allies.
You're probably better off focusing more on debuffing than ranged buffs. Now, of course, you could have an injection glove as your off hand to provide battlefield buffs in melee since it doesn't require a roll to hit and the ranged buffs only for emergencies but I don't think it's viable long term as a primary gameplay strategy.
Not attacking you but I have the same concerns based on a campaign that actually reached the highest level range. :)
P.S. That all being said Biohackers are fine debuffers and can really put down the hurt on an enemy. This is probably their strongest suit so it might be intentional for them to be less reliable at ranged buffs.
You're probably better off focusing more on debuffing than ranged buffs. Now, of course, you could have an injection glove as your off hand to provide battlefield buffs in melee since it doesn't require a roll to hit and the ranged buffs only for emergencies but I don't think it's viable long term as a primary gameplay strategy.
You don't need an injection glove to buff your allies in melee. You can do that automatically.
An injection can be injected into a willing or unconscious creature (or yourself) as a standard action, as long as the target is within your reach
You're probably better off focusing more on debuffing than ranged buffs. Now, of course, you could have an injection glove as your off hand to provide battlefield buffs in melee since it doesn't require a roll to hit and the ranged buffs only for emergencies but I don't think it's viable long term as a primary gameplay strategy.You don't need an injection glove to buff your allies in melee. You can do that automatically.
An injection can be injected into a willing or unconscious creature (or yourself) as a standard action, as long as the target is within your reach
Ah! I missed this! Thank you. :) This makes multi-weapon fighting with two injection pistols even more ideal.
