We're playing our first Starfinder campaign as we normally play Pathfinder. I still prefer the Pathfinder system but Starfinder is still fun to change things up.
I've been playing an android Exo-Cortex Mechanic that's 8th level. I play tested a Bio Hacker tonight. I kept the race, and the stat array the same and our GM allowed me to switch classes for tonight to see how it would play out.
I went with the Studious version because it seemed stronger. There's no good debuffer class in Starfinder and I thought it would be a nice addition to our group.
I focused on fighting with an injection pistol, whereas the mechanic uses a sniper rifle.
We had 4 encounters tonight - one starship and three regular. Our scientist was missing this evening so played the scientist role as well as my regular engineering role. I was rolling abysmally tonight (we counted, I rolled 11 "1s") but after an unusually tough starship battle we pulled off a win. The BioHacker gets no insight bonus to skills and while I did take Skill Synergy I assigned to bonuses to Life and physical science thinking that would be more useful (I was wrong). Anyway, I missed a ton of rolls during starship combat where as normally I think I have to roll a 3 to succeed.
I found the scanner to be pretty useless. The range is short and it takes a move action. We play that normally identifying creatures is a free action - you either know or you don't. It's not like you google it. We've never found anything in the rules that contradicts this. I tried to identify a creature using it once, failed and never bothered again.
The basic counteragents are solid but I never used any. Aside from the +2 skill bonus, the restoratives are weak sauce. The skill bonus could be usefull it it lasted longer but too many tasks take more than 2 rounds.
The spark of Ingenuity is nice for Studious. Unfortunately, I rolled a one
when trying to deliver it. /sadface The instinctive one is decent but we haven't seen that many status effects on this AP.
The fields of study are not very balanced. The counteragents range from barely useful (neurochemistry) to OP (pharmacology). The duration on restoratives is to short to be used anyway but as a reaction and they don't really do enough to be effective in that roll.
Most of the breakthroughs are pretty meh, and the few that I can see my self using a paired with fields that I wouldn't take. You get the breakthrough too late to suffer through a weak field. You don't get enough for that.
Theorums. Over all I thought these were pretty well done. There were quite a few I saw as useful. One beef is that everyone is going to take Quick Load at second level. If everyone is going to take an option, it shouldn't be an option. Just make it part of the class. Field Dressing is decent but doesn't scale at all at high levels - why not make it 4d8+level at 14?
Toxic skin is nice for ranged people that don't like getting swallowed whole. And I took Arms expert to up my damage a bit.
My damage was lower but still comparable to my over charged sniper rifle wielding mechanic. Level 8 seems to be sweet spot for BioHackers since the extra +1 from Weapon Focus and the extra +1 from Injection weapons both come into effect. I barely hit a few times tonight and those made a big difference.
One comment form my GM: The counteragent from Pharmacology is too strong. I locked down a boss tonight with confusion. There's no save and nothing that says it can't be reapplied, so I shot him with the counteragent every second round and in the five rounds it only got to attack us once, and it hit itself pretty hard one round. If I keep playing the Biohacker I have to pick a different power next time.
I also like the genetics power (vulnerability to element) and toxicology (sickness). Most of the other didn't impress me.
The first battle we fought a non-organic being and I have to admit I forgot that my basic counteragents would work. Then we fought some undead (sigh) and a human boss (yay). The last fight was against a god's avatar which I thoroughly dominated.
I looked at poisons and discovered Starfinder has the same problem with poisons that Pathfinder does. Poison is really deadly in Starfinder but the DCs are stupid low. PCs in starfinder tend to have one or more really crappy saves - unlike Pathfinder there's not much you can do to raise them. However, NPCs and monsters tend to have high saves. It's why our Mystic rarely bothers with his offensive spells anymore and why poison isn't worth it's high price. If a Biohacker could make it for cheap, then I wouldn't mind wasting it constantly but at 1400 credits a shot, no way. Missing is bad enough but when the save is trivial, it's pointless. Another reason why I don't like Starfinder's crafting rules.
I enjoyed playing the Biohacker. A good selection of options are available. I don't like the choice of field of study restoratives to be so narrow. Really, how often do you run across a bleed attack? We've yet to encounter it. The restoratives should last longer in my opinion.
I'd add an insight bonus to a couple skills, buff the restoratives and although it pains me to say so, nerf the confusion counteragent.
I'm glad to see you are working on more classes for Starfinder. The Biohacker looks good and with a few tweaks could be great. I like more options and I'm looking forward to getting them. Hopefully there are lots of new (useful) feats as well since the current list is a bit short in that regard.
Can you post the character sheet? I'm interested.
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It sounds like you were running the durations awfully short. I'm assuming you have a 20 Int at 8th level. That would mean the counteragents go for 2 rounds and your restoratives for 5. You would need to shoot the boss only every 3rd round to keep the confusion up and you'd have 5 rounds for your allies to use the +2 to skills.
I hadn't realized that durations of restoratives are equal to the key stat and not half. That's probably good enough. I would still like to see the AC boost to +2 instead of +1. I'm not sure such a small AC boost is worth it. We seem to get hit about 50-75% of the time even with armor at our current level.
Alas, I don't have Herolab for Starfinder so forgive the formatting and possible errors:
Android Biohacker 8 HP 54 Stamina 56 Resolve 9
Str 11, Dex 23 Con 12 Int 20 Wis 12 Cha 8 Initiative +10
EAC 26 KAC 26 BAB 6 Fort 7 Ref 9 Will 7
Studious Injections/day: 12
Fields of Study: Toxicology, Pharmacology
Spark of Ingenuity: 1/day
Theorems: Field Dressing, Quick Load, Toxic Skin, Arms Expert
Feats: Light Armor, Small Arms, Basic Melee, Weapon Spec, Weapon Focus (small Arms), Improved Initiative, Skill Synergy, Enhanced Resistance (Kinetic).
Skills: Computers 15, Culture 15, Engineering 15, Life Science 17, Medicine 15, Perception, Physical Science 17, Survival 11, Piloting 14, Stealth 14
Nightorch Needler, Adv. +16 30' 2D6 (Holy Fusion)
Aerochor Hide, Adv +10 +10
+2 Int
+4 Dex
Jump Jets
Healing Serum x3
Anti Toxin x2
How do you figure every three rounds?
Shoot boss - Start Confusion
Boss confused (round 1) Babbles
Shoot boss with 2 normal rounds.
Boss still confused (round 2) Punches Self
Shoot boss Refresh Injection
Boss confused again (round 1) Babbles
Reload (I assumed that injections still use normal rounds)
Boss Confused (round 2) Attacks nearest Target (Soldier)
Shoot boss Refresh Injection
Boss dies before his turn.
Luckily I only missed once (one of the two shots on Round 2).
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confused targets will attack people that attack them so chain confusion is hard to do. Its a lot of work to pull off.
If you are attacked while you’re confused, you always attack the creature that last attacked you until that creature is dead or out of sight, unless it is otherwise impossible for you to attack it that round. While confused, you can’t make attacks of opportunity against any creature or thing that you aren’t already committed to attacking.
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*Checks Starfinder
*Checks Pathfinder
*Checks 3.5
*Checks 3.0
Well, what do you know? We've been playing this spell wrong for 18 years. I guess we should have kept reading the flavor text beyond the chart.
This makes confusion a lot better vs a group and much, much less effective against a single enemy.