Playtest session with Biohacker and Vanguard


Character Operations Manual Playtest General Discussion


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My group finished our first playtest session about a week ago, with a 9th level Envoy, Solarian, Biohacker, and Vanguard. Here are some of our thoughts on the new classes:

Biohacker
Our Biohacker played an instinctive Biohacker, with +6 Wisdom. In combat, he was pretty effective. The confusion effect from the Pharmacology field allowed him to effectively take an enemy out of the fight for 3 rounds, and one of the enemies even killed itself with self-damage. The player noted that the limited number of injections didn't seem too bad, especially since they each lasted 3 rounds. He figured lower levels might run into issues without maxing out a primary stat, but at 9th with his high wisdom, the class was able to contribute effectively for the whole day of adventuring.

Being able to use wisdom instead of intelligence for many skills was neat. When using the "Treat Deadly Wounds" function of medicine, though, we realized that the Biohacker had no language to replace the intelligence based bonus healing from beating the DC by 5 with wisdom. Some future-proofed language might be nice, calling out that the ability score replacement applies not just to checks, but also to ability score-based effects that those skills might create.

Our Biohacker also noted that counteragents seems a lot more useful than restoratives, especially when using a ranged injection weapon to deliver them. Part of it was due to the accuracy disparity between shooting an enemy vs shooting an ally, and part was due to the relatively low impact of the restoratives when compared to counteragents.

Vanguard
We don't have a ton of feedback on the Vanguard, mainly because the class worked pretty well out of the box. Our Vanguard was appropriately tanky, and managed to pull off some cool combos with the Solarian. There was a concern with the strict level requirements for using a weapon with Entropic Strike would create some weird situations. Our Vanguard was using a Nanofiber Garrote (a level 7 weapon), but he was concerned that he'd have to buy the very expensive level 11 Vibrogarotte if he wanted to keep using the strategy come level 10.

That's it for now, we hope to get in one more playtest session before the end date.

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