Noble brothers of the stars!
First, I do not speak English, I'm from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, my knowledge is medium, any mistake, it's Google Translator's fault.
Anyway, I am to play Aeon Throne and I intend to go with a Technomancer, I have seen a lot of rifles but I intend to create something more body combat, or as we call here in Brazil, "porrada", finally browsing through Alien Archives 2 I came across the Uplifted Bear, considering your modifiers, can I consider this breed as a good melee combat technomancer? If so, what tips can give me good efficiency and performance on the paper I chose? Can you help me?
Grateful!
Dragonkin, formian, ilthisarian, nuar, and SRO also work pretty well for melee technomancers.
Uplifted bears are certainly decent choices.
Personally, I find the large size without the 10' reach other races get to be iffy, but it's not a deal breaker.
Well, less, they uplifted bear has a lot of positive traits. Their size is one of the downsides to balance it.
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Dragonkin, formian, ilthisarian, nuar, and SRO also work pretty well for melee technomancers.
Nuar punchcasters are awesome. I love Mu. I made her with a Blitz Soldier dip, but you can totally go 100% technomancer with junksword and junk armor.
(If you're curious, you can see my build for Mu at Level 8 by clicking my Avatar. I built for speed, and combined Nuar with Blitz and a Speed suspension to get a 60 foot movement speed. Add reach, and you can have a lot of fun charging across a battlefield.)
In fact, the idea of creating a technomancer specialized in hand-to-hand combat is getting a lot of satisfaction, I always liked characters who used magic and weapons, (still playing magus!), Seeing the tips I noticed the Nuar as a Interesting race, but I came up with another question. I would not want to miss casting levels but I'll have to spend 2 deeds, one for heavy armor and one for advanced weapons. It pays to spend 2 feats not to lose caster level or ideal is to take a level of soldier and then follow as technomancer? It is a shame the damage of the horns of the Nuar does not progress, therefore could use only the horns as a weapon ...
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In fact, the idea of creating a technomancer specialized in hand-to-hand combat is getting a lot of satisfaction, I always liked characters who used magic and weapons, (still playing magus!), Seeing the tips I noticed the Nuar as a Interesting race, but I came up with another question. I would not want to miss casting levels but I'll have to spend 2 deeds, one for heavy armor and one for advanced weapons. It pays to spend 2 feats not to lose caster level or ideal is to take a level of soldier and then follow as technomancer? It is a shame the damage of the horns of the Nuar does not progress, therefore could use only the horns as a weapon ...
Do you have the Pact Worlds book? If so, you don't need to get Advanced Melee Weapon Proficiency, because you can take the Junksword spell instead. The Junksword can be conjured with Reach and gets more powerful as your spell levels increase; it gives you automatic proficiency in it. It also has a very nice (1.5 x Level) damage bonus instead of specialization.
This character is a Nuar and a pure Technomancer, level-wise, but with the Steward Officer archetype, which gives me bonus Improved Unarmed Strike, which gives me a good back-up weapon in case I'm out of spells or otherwise unable to use the Junksword. I am 6th level now and have boosted my Intelligence and Strength to 20 with augmentations.
The other great thing about a pure melee Technomancer build is Mirror Image. If you cast it on the first round of combat before you move into melee range, you will most likely be able to take an extra few hits for no damage, which gives value in terms of tanking that your low Stamina would not otherwise suggest.
If you try this character, I hope you have fun!
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Thanks for help!
I built something...but honestly the main component of it is:
Get heavy armor and power armor proficiency and take a race that has a natural attack with specialization of 1 1/2 * level. (always make sure you chose power armor with battery usage measured in hours.)
Power armor will replace the base dice component of your natural attack, which tends to be on the weak side and the 1 1/2 level in weapon specialization damage will make up for the rest of it.
Since you're not actually buying a weapon you save yourself lots of money.
I don't think there are really any spells or technomancer abilities that really improve melee combat, so you're free to do basically whatever.
Punchcaster
Formian cyberborn technomancer 10 Alien Archive 51
N Medium monstrous humanoid
Init +5; Senses blindsense (scent) 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +9
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Defense SP 80 HP 54 RP 11
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EAC 32; KAC 36
Fort +6; Ref +8; Will +6
DR 7/—; Resist sonic 5
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee unarmed strike +15 (2d6+21 B)
Offensive Abilities spellshot
Technomancer Spells Known (CL 10th)
. . 3rd (4/day)—slow
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Statistics
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Str 22 (+6); Dex 20 (+5); Con 16 (+3); Int 23 (+6); Wis 8 (-1); Cha 10 (+0)
Skills Acrobatics +13, Athletics +14, Computers +23 (10 ranks), Culture +16, Engineering +17 (10 ranks), Life Science +19, Mysticism +15, Perception +9, Physical Science +19, Piloting +18 (10 ranks); (reduce the DC of Engineering and Life Science checks relating to cybernetic augmentations)
Feats Enhanced Resistance, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Mystic Strike, Powered Armor Proficiency, Spell Focus, Weapon Focus (basic melee weapons)
Languages Akitonian, Aklo, Azlanti, Brethedan, Castrovelian, Celestial, Common, Draconic, Drow, Eoxian, Infernal, Kasatha, Shirren, Starsong, Triaxian, Vercite, Vesk, Ysoki; limited telepathy 30 ft.
Other Abilities cache capacitor I (current spell), flash teleport, magic negation, self-hacker, spell cache (item type)
Other Gear [i]celerity rigging[/i], field tactical shield, credstick (17,100 creditscredits); Augmentations mk 1 synaptic accelerator (dexterity), mk 2 synaptic accelerator (intelligence)
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at https://www.wolflair.com
Starfinder and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Inc., and are used under license.
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Power armor will replace the base dice component of your natural attack, which tends to be on the weak side and the 1 1/2 level in weapon specialization damage will make up for the rest of it.
I'm still not sure how power armor works in concert with Natural Weapons.
Do you actually get Natural Weapons +1.5xLevel, or is the armor so un-natural that you only get basic weapon specialization +1xLevel?
Is Power Armor unarmed attack archaic? You wouldn't think so, but it doesn't say anything about removing the penalty.
Can you choose to use Improved Unarmed Strike damage instead of the Power Armor damage die? Again, you would think so, but the Power Armor section simply says you do that die of damage instead of your regular Unarmed Strike damage.
I've been thinking of getting Power Armor for my Nuar melee Technomancer, but I'm not sure I want to if it is going to nerf my unarmed damage.
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Power armor will replace the base dice component of your natural attack, which tends to be on the weak side and the 1 1/2 level in weapon specialization damage will make up for the rest of it.I'm still not sure how power armor works in concert with Natural Weapons.
Do you actually get Natural Weapons +1.5xLevel, or is the armor so un-natural that you only get basic weapon specialization +1xLevel?
Is Power Armor unarmed attack archaic? You wouldn't think so, but it doesn't say anything about removing the penalty.
Can you choose to use Improved Unarmed Strike damage instead of the Power Armor damage die? Again, you would think so, but the Power Armor section simply says you do that die of damage instead of your regular Unarmed Strike damage.
I've been thinking of getting Power Armor for my Nuar melee Technomancer, but I'm not sure I want to if it is going to nerf my unarmed damage.
I think these are all very valid issues. The hardest one to rule in the player's favor from a "realism" standpoint seems to be allowing the merger of the power armor dice and the natural weapons specialization - if you're hitting with your armored fist, you're most definitely not hitting with your bite, tail, horns, or whatever.
Hi there! I'm not usually super active here on the forums but I made a melee technosmasher and I'd like to drop in my two cents.
I went human, with 14 int, 16 str and 12 con then put my extra feat in on toughness. Since spellcasting doesn't need a free hand in starfinder there was no reason for me not to take a 2 handed weapon (greataxe which has a really high damage output for melee), the only thing it hurts is jolting surge which I can just one hand my weapon if I'm gonna shoot that off. I also one level soldier dipped for heavy armor and a better bab. My biggest issue is the low HP since that's still 5 per level. And yeah unarmed strikes being archaic make it kinda worth having a weapon.
Empowered weapon magic hack is a godsend since it lets you spend spell slots to get bonuses to attack rolls and extra dice to damage (and you can get it at level 2!) and the spell supercharge weapon is also really nice to have (they do stack btw though if you miss it's a real pain since it's 2 spells gone, also it's hard to set up both together but 1 is usually sufficient). And jolting surge gives you a flat +2 to the attack roll since I guess they don't expect you to have a high strength.
Another good investment is summon creature since robots are really tough and at level 2 they're small so they serve as a great flanking buddy.
This is assuming you don't want powered armor since powered armor gimps on strength if you already have a high strength score. So I'd make a very different build for that. But trust me, he's a bit of a glass cannon but my technomancer hits like a truck if I can get everything off.
I haven't tried this with a bear but presumably you could get similar stats. Only downside is being large makes you a much bigger target which does hurt you a lot since you'll be far behind on HP compared to most hitters in melee so I would great suggest toughness and some con to least give some stamina. Dex is good but not essential if you're going with heavy armor from what I've found. Hope this helps!
A borais has a con buff and can use necromantic revitization to heal , which is something to also look into
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You don't need to be a borai to heal yourself with Necromancer Revitalization. A necrograft will make you subject to the effect of the spell, though it does also make you subject to things like Control Undead, if they come up (with a save bonus if you didn't go overboard on the grafts).
I think these are all very valid issues. The hardest one to rule in the player's favor from a "realism" standpoint seems to be allowing the merger of the power armor dice and the natural weapons specialization - if you're hitting with your armored fist, you're most definitely not hitting with your bite, tail, horns, or whatever.
Power armor will replace the base dice component of your natural attack, which tends to be on the weak side and the 1 1/2 level in weapon specialization damage will make up for the rest of it.I'm still not sure how power armor works in concert with Natural Weapons.
Do you actually get Natural Weapons +1.5xLevel, or is the armor so un-natural that you only get basic weapon specialization +1xLevel?
Is Power Armor unarmed attack archaic? You wouldn't think so, but it doesn't say anything about removing the penalty.
Can you choose to use Improved Unarmed Strike damage instead of the Power Armor damage die? Again, you would think so, but the Power Armor section simply says you do that die of damage instead of your regular Unarmed Strike damage.
I've been thinking of getting Power Armor for my Nuar melee Technomancer, but I'm not sure I want to if it is going to nerf my unarmed damage.
I agree these are valid questions that should be brought to your GM.
But as far as I can tell from the rules:
1) Power armor can replace your unarmed strike weapon damage die, though it doesn't have to (I think)
2) Using power armor attack die doesn't remove the 1.5 weapon spec damage, as that simply modifies how unarmed strike damage is calculated
3) Because your natural attacks also say it's not archaic you don't have that problem either
Yes it's weird, but basically by the rules it looks like you get to combine the best parts of unarmed strike, power armor weapon die, and natural attack weapon specialization damage.
At least that's how Herolab's software is calculating it, which isn't an argument to say it's absolutely right but does fit with the interpretation of the rules that I have come to.
But as far as I can tell from the rules:
1) Power armor can replace your unarmed strike weapon damage die, though it doesn't have to (I think)
2) Using power armor attack die doesn't remove the 1.5 weapon spec damage, as that simply modifies how unarmed strike damage is calculated
3) Because your natural attacks also say it's not archaic you don't have that problem either
1) I would assume it does have to replace the die. Each power armor has a die and damage type for unarmed attacks while wearing the armor. Unless you’re also an armor storm soldier, then hammer fist overrides the PA’s unarmed attack.
2) I don’t see how this could be true. The character isn't hitting with its own limb, it's attacking with the armor. I could see arguing that you either use the PA's unarmed die with regular spec damage, or the character's unarmed die with improved spec damage, but not a mixture of the 2.
2 a.) Aside from that, what about, PA that’s bigger than your character? I can’t see how 1.5 spec damage applies when a character is sitting in a cockpit using a joystick to swing an armor limb around.
3) I don’t believe any PA attacks are archaic, regardless of what else gets mixed in to the equation.
I disagree that the Armor Storm Hammer Fist ability is required to use. As actually it turns out to be worse than just using Power Armors built in attack (at least prior to level 10).
By the rules it appears to be true.
Natural Weapons
Vesk are always considered armed. They can deal 1d3 lethal damage with unarmed strikes and the attack doesn’t count as archaic. Vesk gain a unique weapon specialization with their natural weapons at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1–1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level, as usual).
Natural attacks just seem to modify how unarmed strikes work.
It should be clarified. You're right that thematically it probably shouldn't apply, but as far as I can tell it does.
You know, I could see getting custom power armor with built-in horns or claws or tails, designed to work with a race's natural arsenal.
Where it gets super hilarious is if power armor damage dice stack with a Ring of Fangs specialization bonus... doubly so if it is large armor with Reach. You just bend over realllllly far and... power... chomp... them?
I agree with you that the interaction of natural attacks and unarmed strikes isn't clear.
While this isn't a good argument, I can tell you that:
1) Herolab treats Hammer Fist as something you can turn on and off
2) Herolab treats natural attacks as a modification to unarmed strike, which would allow you to combine things like Hammer Fist (or Power Armor attack) and Weapon Specialization.
As I said, this isn't a good or strong argument for how it's supposed to work, just something to note.
That said, I would definitely prefer point 2 to be true, else you just invite everyone to buy the Ring of Fangs, which is super cheap and does even more damage. But would also have the same interaction problem as far as damage dice are concerned, but the additional static damage starts to outstrip that concern.
I guess what I'm saying is, point 2 being true is better for the diversity of the game.
but if you look at them as far as the system's view of 'realism,' then they don't make any sense if they interact."
I like to use the parts that make sense, usually. Others might not. Just pointing out that there's a lot of moving parts here, I'd expect significant table variation on most of this.
I'm not sure how realism or what 'makes sense' really comes into play here. A Vesk's custom suit of power armor being built to accommodate/augment their claws seems pretty reasonable from a versimilitudinal standpoint. Whether or not it's kosher with the rules is a little more vague, but it definitely seems like something someone would try to do.
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Oh, of course, I wouldn't bat an eye at a player wanting to use a race's natural weapons, even if those natural weapons wouldn't make a lot of sense, given what kind of natural weapon and where it's located.
It's the interaction of the higher damage die from the PA's unarmed attack with the race's 1.5 x level for unarmed attacks that I don't think goes together.
Particularly when you reach the larger sized PAs, where the character is sitting in a cockpit, rather than wearing the PA like armor.
Like I said, I don't disagree with you thematically. It's just when I read the rules they all seem to say they modify how unarmed strikes work.
In effect, there are no separate natural attack weapons. It's all just lumped under unarmed strike.
I could see the developers intending this to reduce the amount of issues we had in PF1 with the interaction of Natural Attacks and Unarmed Strikes, but I could also see them saying "Well this doesn't make sense".
But until they clarify....well it's unclear.
Point of order: Armour, presumably including powered armour, has to be customized to the user. Presumably, that customization potentially includes everything that would be required to make natural weapons work - which I think takes care of any thematic elements.
I don’t think this works at all for power armor. It certainly doesn’t work for large, huge, or gargantuan power armor, so for consistency I’d assume that medium PA also has too much metal between your flesh and the outside world to incorporate your natural weapons.
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What do the shape of hands have to do with natural weapons? Do you think if someone mounts Nuar horns on the bumper of their car a Nuar driver makes natural attacks when he crashes it into people?
This is relevant:
Armory 74
Hands
Powered armors of Large or greater size use their own arms and hands, rather than allowing the user to manipulate objects or weapons with their own hands. Operating such a suit of powered armor requires all your hands to be free (within the armor’s cockpit) and allows you use of all the armor’s hands. Large and bigger suits of powered armor have two arms and hands unless specified otherwise.
Powered armors of Medium or smaller size allow the operator to use its own limbs (however many that is), and does not require any hands be free in order to operate the functions of the powered armor.
That would make the rules more complicated, because different sets of power armor would have different access to the users natural attacks. Which is bad for rules consistency and ease of use.
I really feel we need a one size fits all ruling on this.
Either natural attacks simply modify unarmed strikes, and regardless of what kind of armor (including power armor) you're wearing it simply works. Or power armor simply prevents the use of natural attacks, which is why you get the benefit of the damage dice with power armor.
This is relevant:
Armory 74
Hands
Powered armors of Large or greater size use their own arms and hands, rather than allowing the user to manipulate objects or weapons with their own hands. Operating such a suit of powered armor requires all your hands to be free (within the armor’s cockpit) and allows you use of all the armor’s hands. Large and bigger suits of powered armor have two arms and hands unless specified otherwise.
Powered armors of Medium or smaller size allow the operator to use its own limbs (however many that is), and does not require any hands be free in order to operate the functions of the powered armor.That would make the rules more complicated, because different sets of power armor would have different access to the users natural attacks. Which is bad for rules consistency and ease of use.
I really feel we need a one size fits all ruling on this.
Either natural attacks simply modify unarmed strikes, and regardless of what kind of armor (including power armor) you're wearing it simply works. Or power armor simply prevents the use of natural attacks, which is why you get the benefit of the damage dice with power armor.
I agree. This is more complicated, not less.
Do kasatha, shobhad, and other multi-armed races only have two "armor" arms while wearing large powered armor? If so, why would their armorsmiths conform to the standards of other humanoids?
I think not. Unless a suit of armor says otherwise, I don't believe you lose out on any of your traits or abilities, including natural weapons.
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This is relevant:
Armory 74
Hands
Powered armors of Large or greater size use their own arms and hands, rather than allowing the user to manipulate objects or weapons with their own hands. Operating such a suit of powered armor requires all your hands to be free (within the armor’s cockpit) and allows you use of all the armor’s hands. Large and bigger suits of powered armor have two arms and hands unless specified otherwise.
Powered armors of Medium or smaller size allow the operator to use its own limbs (however many that is), and does not require any hands be free in order to operate the functions of the powered armor.That would make the rules more complicated, because different sets of power armor would have different access to the users natural attacks. Which is bad for rules consistency and ease of use.
I really feel we need a one size fits all ruling on this.
Either natural attacks simply modify unarmed strikes, and regardless of what kind of armor (including power armor) you're wearing it simply works. Or power armor simply prevents the use of natural attacks, which is why you get the benefit of the damage dice with power armor.
I agree. This is more complicated, not less.
Do kasatha, shobhad, and other multi-armed races only have two "armor" arms while wearing large powered armor? If so, why would their armorsmiths conform to the standards of other humanoids?
I think not. Unless a suit of armor says otherwise, I don't believe you lose out on any of your traits or abilities, including natural weapons.
The problem is that while they haven't quite gone all the way to just say it flat out, it's increasingly clear that large+ power armor isn't really armor in a conventional sense. It's a mech that you're piloting around, using your hands to drive it and its speed to move.
The only real issue with whether medium armor breaks from this by being a small enough wrapper that your normal physiology still matters and can be applied in some situations.