So, I personally don't like the idea of playing a heavy armor solarian and I think that with a little tweaking, a solarian could be played as a lightly armored yet effective front-line fighter. This type of solarian uses revelations and tricks instead of heavy armor to survive and deal damage, the equivalent of a pathfinder monk. With special abilities like flashing strikes and solarian onslaught, I envision this solarian as more capable against several mid-level foes and less effective against high level “boss” monsters, again like a pathfinder monk. This isn’t to say I would have a problem with a player who wants a heavy hitting solarian, I just like having another option.
About a month ago I created a thread on reddit starfinder_rpg suggesting a homebrew revelation that would enhance the survivability of a lightly armored front line solarian. I got a lot of excellent feedback. That along with several more game sessions have helped me fine tune this idea:
Gravitational Influence (graviton).
You use your connection with the gradational tides of the universe to avoid damaging attacks. As a move action, you may increase the enhancement bonus of your solar armor equal to one-half of your charisma bonus, minimum one, divided evenly as possible between you KAC and EAC. This bonus lasts 1 turn or until you leave graviton mode.
When you are attuned or fully attuned, this bonus increases to your charisma bonus, minimum one, divided evenly between your KAC and EAC.
Thus, a solarian with an 18 charisma would improve their solar armor by +1 KAC and +1 EAC. In graviton mode, this bonus would equal +2 KAC and +2 EAC. This, along with the solar armor bonus would give a little less protection than wearing heavy armor.
You would also have the advantages of wearing light armor including better movement and little to no skill penalty. This, along with the solar armor fire/cold resistances might make this revelation too powerful.
Disadvantages include a lower AC at the beginning of combat and during surprise rounds. This revelation would also increase the need to stay in graviton mode, reducing damage output and opportunities to use photon revelations such as plasma sheath and corona. You end up giving up a lot of damage. Finally, since this only works with solar armor, a melee solarian loses the increased damage from the soul fire fusion.
Overall, I think the benefits and disadvantages of a build with this revelation are equivalent. You trade better damage for better defenses. I also like the flavor of this revelation. This solarian uses cool matrix like dodges to avoid damage rather than absorbing hits with heavy armor.
So, what do you guys think?
its a bit complicated, but I do like the idea. I did a similar tweak for my own games, that just built it into solar armor;(Specifically, Armor Solarions can add their Charisma Mod to AC and Reflex saves in place of their Dexterity mod)and my players liked it.
given that this version costs a Revelation and a move action, I think it shouldn't be too strong.
The only edge case where it gets 'strong' is a dex (and probably longarm) focused solarian. Who's AC skyrockets if they have on level+ armor.
Turns out, it's only a little better than heavy armor of a similar level, so even then, it's probably mostly okay.