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Let's talk about spells. Here's the Witchwarper ones. Spell level after the name.
Acid Rain 5: 50% miss chance after a failed save, but only if they stay in the same area? Well, you've got lots of crowd control abilities to make it hard for them to leave, I guess. You're certainly not here for the minimal damage.
Antiradiation 3: You could learn this spell to get rid of radiation, or you could just wear armor. I think you know the answer. Surprisingly pointless.
Charming Veneer 0: This is actually a good buff to keep up permanently for your demoralize build PCs as well as your party's face. A +1 circumstance bonus that lasts 10 minutes is great.
Churn Fluid 0: A flavor (heh) spell, but a cool one.
Dazzling Flares 0: Meh. Assist a stealthing ally against a guard who doesn't mind you casting harmless spells on him?
Enduring Worlds 1: At low level you don't have the slots to spend to extend your duration of Infinite Worlds, and at higher levels you don't need a boost to your inherent duration. I don't think it's worth it.
Gravity Well 4: Everyone gets this. Knocks people prone, which you can already do with Infinite Worlds, but also can move them toward a center spot and provoke from that forced movement. If you're somehow standing outside the area with reach, I guess, or inside and making your save to avoid provoking yourself on your turn. "Creatures adjacent to the spell’s origin point take a –2 penalty to the save to avoid being pulled." Wut? If I'm adjacent to a grid intersection how can I be pulled any closer?
Hateful Visage 4: Grant an ally +10 insight to demoralize, and if successful targets are frightened instead of shaken. A great buff on yourself if you chose a different skill to boost with compound sight and you pick up improved demoralize feat. Very high chance to send three opponents running over 2 rounds, with better odds than a Fear spell and no cone concerns for your allies mixed in.
Hazard 0: It's an AOE Energy Ray. Inflict negligible damage on 2-3 adjacent enemies!
Miasma 4: Mystic gets it, too. Stinking Cloud for Starfinder, it does penetrate environmental protections. Nauseated if you fail the save, sickened otherwise. This can be quiet nice if you stack it on some other crowd control to keep people from leaving.
Parallel Form 2: This is mass Disguise Self and allows targets to impersonate specific individuals with a lesser bonus. It's a low key amazing spell for infiltration or escape. The only real limit is minute/level duration.
Prescience 3: Cast on a target and then trigger reactions in response to its actions. You can try to trip it (for any reason), prevent it from getting back up after you tripped it, impose penalties on attacks, prevent reloading, prevent drawing a weapon, and prevent using an item. The target gets a reflex save every time. Concentration, but no SR, and there are plenty of weak reflex tough enemies that this would be an efficient debuff against.
Puncture Veil 1: It's your replacement for Magic Missile as automatic damage. Slightly less damage delivered over a longer time frame and no force, I'd skip it.
Reality Bend 5: Concentrate to move an ally a free 10' every round, and you can switch who receives it every round. This is useful, but 5th level spell and using up all your standard actions useful?!
Reality Leap 2: It's a personal Dimension Door (full long range) with a 50% chance to scatter you like a missed grenade from your intended point. This is kind of nuts for low level infiltration or escape, the only significant downside vs Dimension Door is that you can't bring others with you. I can't imagine not taking this spell on a Witchwarper.
Shifting Surge 1: It's Supercharge Weapon but half the damage boost in return for also changing the energy type for the next round. The energy chance does last past the next shot.
Slice Reality 2: Do some very minor damage to a very few creatures at medium range, or focus on one target for some very minor damage and a potential slow effect on a failed save. It's a decent debuff until you outgrow the spell level DC and/or get the Slow spell or Inhibit paradigm shift.
Song of the Cosmos 2: It's a one round fascinate in a spread around you. Why. Mystics also get it. Poor Mystics.
Song of the Cosmos, Greater 4: It's 2-5 rounds of fascinate and dazzle. Why?!
Star Storm 6: It's twice as big and 71% more damaging than an Exploding Blast, but E/F. I wouldn't spend a 6th level spell slot on that. Mystics also get it to fill out their still lackluster blasting options. Technomancers laugh politely.
Unspeakable Presences 6: Enemies in a 60' radius take minor damage and can't move unless they make a reflex save, which they can try every round. If they take damage three consecutive rounds (either because they failed two reflex saves or were otherwise prevented from leaving the area), they must also make a Fortitude save or be completely devoured. This...has some potential. You can use other spells/infinite worlds to set up difficult terrain or walls or other crowd control to limit/prevent movement out of the zone even if they make one of those reflex saves. Slap a Miasma on top and everyone is taking a sickened penalty to their saves, hit them with a Fear and they're all shaken (and running way from you to a trapped corner in the AOE if you're smart). Of course the huge downside is that devoured creatures disappear with their gear. :-(
Usher Apocalypse 6: Another long range and 60' radius, this hits you for some minor fire damage then creates difficult terrain and forces a reflex save to move. There's no reason you can't stack this with Unspeakable Presences to force two reflex saves per turn to move and have difficult terrain when they try. Maybe not a good investment in spells known, but definitely cool.
Warp Reality -: Your wish/miracle.
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New Technomancer spells.
Awaken Computer 4: Creates a customized artificial personality with good social skills modifiers. It's a cool flavor spell, but you're not going to learn this as a PC.
Blast Door 3: A rounds/level wall to block off corridors that's pretty tough. Definitely has potential to break up or isolate enemies as well as effect an escape or take a breather in combat.
Create Ammunition 1: Get a battery or other low level ammo clump in a purchaseable amount for rounds/minute. This kills most uses of the 2nd level Recharge spell.
Delay Countermeasures 2: Hacking insurance, but only lasts rounds/level to give you time to prepare if you activate countermeasures on a failed hacking attempt. Good support for this playstyle.
Gravity Well 4: See above post.
Groundling 3: This grants a burrow speed equal to you land speed and DR 5/bludgeoning. But Polymorph 3 can grant burrow 20 and other abilities, including damage/energy resistance. And that's not counting the 11 other forms that come with that spell. This is an obsolete on arrival spell from an optimization POV.
Hoverdisk 2: Crazy utility! Hours/level duration, 20 bulk/level carrying capacity, 60' fly speed over low terrain. Not only can you use this to drag lots of gear around behind you, you can use it to cross over obstacles (send it back and forth for the party) or even send it on a long cross country voyage ("take this unconscious NPC to the hospital 15 miles away"). Amazingly cool and useful.
Hoverdisk, Mass 5: Same as above, but disk/level and you can give them the same or separate commands. Probably overkill for this spell level, but potentially you can do some wild stuff with it.
Infect Blood 3: Minor damage every round, reduceable by a save, but also a no save sicken condition. I think that makes this a very useful and unique debuff as part of a synergistic debuff strategy to set up save or lose effects.
Instant Upgrade 2: I don't know what they were smoking, but I'm glad they were. For 10 min/level give you or an ally a free cybernetic upgrade of your caster level or lower. Give darkvision, speed boosts, guaranteed crit effects to the solarion, robot telepathy, a reduction in resolve cost to stabilize, HP healing, X-ray vision, an instant language, a polyhand for instant tools, extra arms, etc. You have to have the augmentation slot free, but that's the only pain about this. At higher levels I'd probably spam all my 2nd level slots into this. And some of my 3rd.
Invisibility to Technology 2: All forms of technology, including sight upgrades in armor and cyber eyes, as well as radar and audio devices, can't detect you. Nor can comm units hear your or motion detectors on automatic doors, though. An interesting variation on visibility, superior in some ways and inferior in others.
Know Coordinates 1: Mystics also get this, and it is bonkers. If you're on the same planet as someone you know, this gives you their coordinates, which you can then plug into the infosphere's version of google maps for precise directions and real world location. This is an 8th level spell in Pathfinder! It's a standard action! There's no save! Every assassin on every planet always can find all of his targets! Every law enforcement agency can track the current location of suspects! Better invest in that nondetection armor upgrade so they at least have to hire someone with a CL higher than 1 to instantly and reliably find you. And bring back Norgorber, people need lesson on never sharing their real identify with anyone.
Laser Net 2: Minor damage for moving through squares. Easier to avoid if you go slow, harder if you charge through. With a 20' radius spread you can force someone to travel through 8 squares to reach you in melee, making 8 saves against 1d6+1 damage. Not bad at this level.
Lifting Frame 1: Grant someone a round/level +5 strength bonus for carrying or breaking things. Nah, man, that's why we brought the Vesk, his +4 is always on. The carrying capacity boost and duration is a total joke (compare to Hoverdisk) and the marginal benefit to breaking things is almost entirely a joke.
Manipulate Tech 2: Remotely activate an unattended tech weapon or tech item that has a usage entry. You can attack once with the weapon (using Int instead of Dex/Str) or make the tech item do its thing. I feel there must be some use for the latter effect, but I'm not sure what. Maybe your GM will bee nice and let you activate some security system or transportation thing during combat.
Nanite Form 3: You lose the ability to attack or cast spells, but get lots of immunities and a 20' fly speed. You can move through 1" openings normally, and squeeze through microscopic openings. With a minute/level duration, go invisible, cast this, then infiltrate all the things. Not that the Technomancer was short on infiltration options.
Optimize Technology 2: Costs resolve, makes an item, vehicle, or construct immune to environmental damage, like corrosive atmospheres. But also: "If the target regains Hit Points while affected, its Hit Points are restored to their maximum." Say what? This seems to mean that the Mending cantrip restores all HP to a 300 HP hover tank while under the effect of this. Um, ok.
Patch Tech 1: +3 insight to arm explosives, disarm devices, or repair items. Lasts forever for some reason, given that you cast it on a particular item you want to effect. You'll grow out of this quickly and a skill focus investment makes it immediately worthless.
Phantom Cycle 2: Create a motorcycle that goes faster as you level. Only you can drive it, but you can take a passenger. Very nice for low level mobility, but it can't help the whole party.
Pinpoint Navigation 3: +10 to astrogate, and plot a course in half the time. You're not going to learn a spell for this as a PC but it makes sense to the lore of the world that it exists.
Remote Operation 1: Concentrate rounds/level to remotely operate a tech device with controls or a vehicle (but not starship). Depending on how your GM interprets controls, this is potentially better in some circumstances than the level 2 Manipulate Tech. 60' isn't a lot of range to hijack a parked car and crash it into enemies, but get creative. Or does the ignition already have to be on? Ask your GM.
Security Protocol 6: Guards and Wards brought to Starfinder. Just assume that MegaCorpDuJour has this running on their ultra secure facility at all times. At the ultraparanoid extreme, you can fill every corridor with Laser Nets, which would be a huge problem if everyone at this level didn't have a Thermal Capacitor Mk 2 in their armor.
Smog Bank 3: Fog cloud with a save or be sickened. Not as good as Miasma, but it's what you get and it's lower level.
Transfer Consciousness 5: Possession has come to Starfinder. Putting your mind in a computer has trivial benefits (speed up hacks, but not avoid them), but if you take over a construct you can puppet its body (using all its stats and non Su/SLA abilities) and cast spells from it. Hide/secure your body, obtain a construct to possess, teleport to your target location, go nuts. If its destroyed you wake up just fine. And you can Reanimate if if you want to reuse your favorite construct.
Transport Passengers 4: Cram extra passengers into a vehicle or tiny spaceship, although in the latter case it only lasts hours/level so don't plan to go far. I don't really see the point of this, except maybe to combine it with Phantom Cycle to drag your party into the unknown at a decent pace.
The new adaptable spell knowledge hack combos well with the utility spell options, pick three spells that you'll occasionally use and then not more than once per day, then pick it out when needed. Phantom Cycle and Hoverdisk seem to fit that profile.
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The CRB spells had a very conservative power level, and most spells here are similarly conservative... but then others are way out of line. It feels like this spells chapter was missing a careful editing pass. Here's some of my own takes (mostly focused on technomancer spells):
Blast Door compares absurdly favorably to Wall of Steel, a 6th level spell. For the restriction of only being able to cast it in a hallway up to 20ft wide and 20ft tall, this 3rd level spell vastly outperforms the 6th level Wall of Steel for the purpose of in-combat use. The Starship Interior wall that it creates has break DC 45, Hardness 30 and 1440 hit points. No one is getting through that without magic... even at 20th level. Wall of Steel has break DC30, Hardness 15 and 180 hit points. Blast Door even lets you place it in squares filled with creatures, and it shunts creatures to the side you decide without giving a save. Its sole balancing factor (other than its placement requirements) is that it takes 1 round to cast.
Hoverdisk seems to effectively give a 60ft hovering land speed with no downsides that lasts all day. In addition, you can give it to your allies to let you spend a move action to move them while they full attack with impunity. It's basically an all-day single target haste spell in that respect, except that it also defeats difficult terrain and ground hazards, and has a mega-pile of utility uses.
Infect Blood is a no-save ranged sicken effect with a small amount of ongoing damage attached. Really, really strong. Combatant-type bosses become chumps while sickened.
Instant Upgrade compares very favorably against other abilities that let you temporarily create gear. Lasts ages and only gets stronger the more you outlevel it. With caster level 10, you're getting to spend your 2nd level slots on 10th level augmentations - getting exactly the stuff you need each time as a standard action. I anticipate picking up the artificial third eye for sense through on demand at that level, for example.
Know Coordinates might as well be called "solve missing person plot" and "find bad guy's secret base". Not sure why its a 1st level spell.
Optimize Technology on an android PC (who count as constructs) gives them all day immunity to environmental effects and radiation, and any HP healing they get always full heals them. An android with fast healing becomes essentially unkillable. Dinky 1st level healing serums full heal your 20th level android soldier. Mk1 Biosynthetic Nanites allow you to full heal your hit points as a swift action for 1 RP and the fast healing mode makes you immortal for 1 minute. When you're KO'd, if you spend 1 RP to stabilize and 1 RP to stay in the fight, instead of regaining 1 hit point, you regain all your hit points.
Smog Bank gets blanked by environmental protections, as opposed to the one-level-higher Miasma that not only gets to bypass them but inflicts the FAR more deadly nauseated condition. Feels like they didn't compare these two.
Transfer Consciousness is neat. The duration and requirement of a willing construct mean that it'll rarely break games wide open.
Transport Passengers has a really low duration when compared to the amount of time it takes to travel anywhere in a starship. Not sure why this is a 4th level spell. Is there some super busted use to it?
Forgot the Lashunta secion spells.
1 Mental Silence: Techno/witchwarper, create a 30' area of telepathic static that forces telepathy and related mental magic spells to succeed on a caster check or fail.
3 Preserve Specimen: Techno/witchwarper, puts a willing/unconscious creature in total statis for weeks/level. Target limitation is a +2 int bonus or lower, so doesn't work on smart allies. Good for people smuggling networks hiding people in boxes?
1 Recall: Techno only, for 24 hours or until expended you can reroll a failed recall knowledge check. That's pretty good, I can definitely see certain concepts spamming this at the beginning of every day and every time it gets used up. This seems slightly overpowered in some ways compared to a similar Divine Blessing feat option, but I guess a spell known is a serious investment even if the slots become less valuable later.
1 Scan Environment: all spellcasters, this gives you quite a lot of information on conditions within miles/level if you concentrate for ten minutes. Definitely a good spell to cast just after landing on a strange planet, but seems pretty overpowered for 1st level even if the effects aren't necessarily that useful in practice.
2 Venomous Weapon: mystic/witchwarper, for minute/level you enchant a weapon that does physical damage (ranged or melee) with five attacks worth of poison. If you hit they must save or be sickened for 2d4 rounds. That's...a pretty good buff to put on your sharpshooter soldier buddy or even yourself to soften someone up ahead of a save or lose spell. Quite nice.
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I am about 50% certain, based on the way the rest of the spell is phrased, that Preserve Specimen is supposed to be *-2* int bonus or lower.
I think you're right.
"Yo momma is so dumb, I caught her and put her in the museum of natural history as a display for 8 weeks."
I am about 50% certain, based on the way the rest of the spell is phrased, that Preserve Specimen is supposed to be *-2* int bonus or lower.
parts is parts
New Technomancer spells.
Awaken Computer 4: Creates a customized artificial personality with good social skills modifiers. It's a cool flavor spell, but you're not going to learn this as a PC.
I've changed my mind on this. Between the adaptable casting feat and the new techno magic hack that also allows extra spells known, I can see taking this to boost a computer for the 3xtier social skills.
At level 10 when you first get this you can put it on a Tier 5 computer (which will cost you 500cr) to have a computer that has +15 to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. None of those are class skills for you, and that's a decent level of minimal proficiency that would cost you a lot of Skill Synergy feats, Cha investment, and skill ranks to duplicate. You're generally 3 points behind a mildly optimized class skill PC (some Cha/Wis investment and an insight bonus, but not maximized), and 8-9 points behind a fully optimized PC (key ability is Cha/Wis and a full scaling insight bonus).
It's sort of a gray zone on rules, but I don't see any reason why a minaturized computer on your wrist or clipped to your armor can't be yelling a demoralize standard action every round at someone near you, and he can whisper in you ear (or boorishly pronounce, if you prefer) his opinions on whether you're being lied to vs Bluff attempts. If you paid for the computer and miniaturization I'd say you earned it.
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I’d like to point out how phenomenally good churn liquid is (if situational). As a 0th level spell you can essentially turn off enemies with injectables/liquid poisons. Non-touch range, no save. Ready an action, if a biohacker is about to inject, churn liquid their booster/hinder/poison/medicinal into distilled water. Same if you find a creature that is coated in a liquid-based a poison or acid. Or if someone has an acid lancer, you can turn their entire acid tank into distilled water.
I’d like to point out how phenomenally good churn liquid is (if situational). As a 0th level spell you can essentially turn off enemies with injectables/liquid poisons. Non-touch range, no save. Ready an action, if a biohacker is about to inject, churn liquid their booster/hinder/poison/medicinal into distilled water. Same if you find a creature that is coated in a liquid-based a poison or acid. Or if someone has an acid lancer, you can turn their entire acid tank into distilled water.
Really won't work as a readied action, you wind up going after the person in question.
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Not so sure about that. This reads as something that could be legitimately ruled a purely defensive readied action, and therefore get to interrupt.
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I’d like to point out how phenomenally good churn liquid is (if situational). As a 0th level spell you can essentially turn off enemies with injectables/liquid poisons. Non-touch range, no save. Ready an action, if a biohacker is about to inject, churn liquid their booster/hinder/poison/medicinal into distilled water. Same if you find a creature that is coated in a liquid-based a poison or acid. Or if someone has an acid lancer, you can turn their entire acid tank into distilled water.Really won't work as a readied action, you wind up going after the person in question.
I don't see why not. Trigger: If (creature/person A) attempts to use their injection weapon (say, the injection estoc), Action, target the container (their weapon) with Churn Liquid, to churn whatever it is into distilled water. Boom, done. You kind of have to do it with a readied action, otherwise the class ability of the biohacker (can use any boost/hinder they have at any time) means they could just switch the distilled water out for a different serum.
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Effecting someone else with a harmful spell so they don't hurt you is very clearly an offensive action, just like shooting someone in the face so they don't shoot you is an offensive action. A defensive action would be making yourself immune to the injection. Same result, but the road to it matters.
Starfinder doesn't really distinguish between a person and their gear. Turning their hydroxymuiretic acid into water so it doesn't hurt you is no different than turning quig into rat quig so he doesn't hurt you. Defensive in a court of law, yes. Not in terms of game mechanics though.
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Effecting someone else with a harmful spell so they don't hurt you is very clearly an offensive action, just like shooting someone in the face so they don't shoot you is an offensive action. A defensive action would be making yourself immune to the injection. Same result, but the road to it matters.
Starfinder doesn't really distinguish between a person and their gear. Turning their hydroxymuiretic acid into water so it doesn't hurt you is no different than turning quig into rat quig so he doesn't hurt you. Defensive in a court of law, yes. Not in terms of game mechanics though.
Oh, huh! I didn’t notice the change in readying an action from first edition to Starfinder. Well, that makes it less useful, but still not useless. You can still turn acid tanks (and arguably petrol) into distilled water, or effect anyone who is NOT a biohacker who has an injection weapon with your standard action. Or you could start widdling down a biohacker’s serums. Still really good in my book. A lot better than a level 0 save negates d3 of damage.
Yeah, starfinder has everyone with a lasergun, no concentration checks, and badguys with hit out the Wazoo. (apologies to species with an actual wazoo) So if ready action to shoot the spellcaster worked, no one would get a cast off, ever. Making casting possible kinda broke offensive readied actions.
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Isn't your body a receptacle holding blood that can be turned into... well anything that isn't blood is probably bad for you. I'm not sure this spell is well-bounded.
I mean, the spell says you can’t turn liquids into toxic or harmful substances, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to mean say that it can’t cause harm or damage to someone. So that prevents you from turning blood into water or an SRO’s oil into saltwater or a Sleifera‘s hydro body (sp? The fish people from the Azlanti) into lemonade.
MYSTIC SPELLS
The Witchwarper has some cool new spells, the Technomancer got a bunch of really powerful options. The Mystic, not as much.
Commune with Planet 5: A good exploration spell when you reach an uncharted planet, but if the GM has this info he should probably be ready to give you what you need via some other method to point you to the plot. This spell should exist, but it's too high level and niche for a PC to take on a spontaneous spell caster.
Comprehend Customs 1: Long duration minor boost to culture checks, reduction in diplomacy DC to change attitudes by 5. Very good on a face/diplomat character, consider picking up via Connection Inkling feat if you influence a lot of people via diplomacy skill.
Displace Memories 4: The Mystic's surprisingly deep niche in memory alteration/recovery expands. Transfer memories into an object. Someone touching it can review them (so mail your memories in a Johnny Mnemonic type plot?), or you can remove them for spying or criminal reasons ("I have no recollection of murdering that person, and your Mind Probe and Detect Truth can't tell any different, can they?).
Divine Aspect 3: You're immune to fear and have the frightful presence monster ability. Doesn't require worship of a god. 30' range shaken aura with big duration. Situationally better than Fear, I guess.
Gravity Well 4: See above post discussing this one.
Haunted Armor 2: -1 to AC and -10 to speed (and -4 Stealth, which isn't likely to come up), will negates, weak sauce. Hold Person is going to do a lot more for you in most circumstances.
Haunted Combatant 2: Weapons on the target have a -1 to attack, will negates. Even Inflict Pain is much better than this, come on!
Illusory Star Field 1: You can make a lot of people see fake stars in the sky (easy DC negates) and get a bluff bonus to convince them of somethign related to the stars ("it's a supernova!" "we're in the southern continent, somehow!"). This isn't useful for PCs, it's a gimmick for Desna/Ibra/Devourer worshippers.
Know Coordinates 1: This spell is purely insane. See the technomancer post.
Megavitamin 1: It's goodberry for Starfinder. They'll, uh, help with the food requirements of the new regeneration serum?
Miasma 4: It's good, maybe overpowered. See the witchwarper post.
Perfect Recall 2: Man, Mystics lover memory spells. A target can perfectly recall memories, which has no described mechanical effects. Skip.
Pinpoint Navigation 3: You're really good at navigating. Great for NPC Star Shamans.
Predict Foe 2: No saving throw, but requires concentration. Every time the target attacks someone, you warn them, giving them concealment. So basically you're imposing a 20% miss chance on a target in return for your standard action. I feel like you could be doing more, but if you're terrible at combat, have low spell DCs, or this is your last spell slot, I guess it's efficient?
Resist Radiation 2: You keep a bunch of targets save from very weak radiation for hours/level. It's sort of a companion to Life Bubble, herding around civilians who lack armor, but with less duration and utility. No PC needs this.
Share Memory 1: I'm sensing a theme. It's sort of a broadcast Mindlink, for when you really can't stand to hear your buddy tell the group a story, but can stand to hear him think it at you. Why?
Some of the Cosmos(Greater) 2/4: Ugh. Bad for the witchwarper (see above), bad for the mystic.
Spirit Bound Armor 1: You're immune to the AC penalty of flat-footed and immune to off-kilter. It's...good? Only rounds/level, though. Cast on your melee monster before he charges in to get surrounded.
Spirit Bound Computer 1: You summon a spirit that hacks computers for you, no joke, minutes/level. Computers bonus is CL + 3 + key attribute, so it's full skill ranks as a class kill without an insight bonus. Not bad. A very solid bread and butter utility option for future Mystics, and a potential Connection Inkling feat consideration for those who want to hack upon occasion but don't want to invest the skill points and don't have the class skill.
Star Storm 6: More bad AOE damage options. See witchwarper above.
The new adaptable spell knowledge hack combos well with the utility spell options, pick three spells that you'll occasionally use and then not more than once per day, then pick it out when needed. Phantom Cycle and Hoverdisk seem to fit that profile.
There are a lot of things I would consider for that adaptable spell knowledge power. There are a lot of things can be incredibly useful but also equally incredibly situational. Having the ability to store three of these in the once per day I am the groups hero vault is pretty damn good.
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Forgot the Lashunta secion spells.
1 Mental Silence: Techno/witchwarper, create a 30' area of telepathic static that forces telepathy and related mental magic spells to succeed on a caster check or fail.
3 Preserve Specimen: Techno/witchwarper, puts a willing/unconscious creature in total statis for weeks/level. Target limitation is a +2 int bonus or lower, so doesn't work on smart allies. Good for people smuggling networks hiding people in boxes?
1 Recall: Techno only, for 24 hours or until expended you can reroll a failed recall knowledge check. That's pretty good, I can definitely see certain concepts spamming this at the beginning of every day and every time it gets used up. This seems slightly overpowered in some ways compared to a similar Divine Blessing feat option, but I guess a spell known is a serious investment even if the slots become less valuable later.
1 Scan Environment: all spellcasters, this gives you quite a lot of information on conditions within miles/level if you concentrate for ten minutes. Definitely a good spell to cast just after landing on a strange planet, but seems pretty overpowered for 1st level even if the effects aren't necessarily that useful in practice.
2 Venomous Weapon: mystic/witchwarper, for minute/level you enchant a weapon that does physical damage (ranged or melee) with five attacks worth of poison. If you hit they must save or be sickened for 2d4 rounds. That's...a pretty good buff to put on your sharpshooter soldier buddy or even yourself to soften someone up ahead of a save or lose spell. Quite nice.
Preserve specimen made my lashunta bounty hunters antenna raise. If you have a bio hacker who can tranq an opponent you otherwise can render your opponent asleep/unconscious this spell locks them down and renders them basically safe for transport. It does not work on everybody but for those it does work on you basically dipped them in carbonite for transport like the mandalorian.
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A note on Infect Blood, the no save sicken on a target - it does have a casting time of 1 round, so it's interruptible and skips your party's next turn before it starts effecting the target. That makes it fairly balanced, I'd say.
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Isn't your body a receptacle holding blood that can be turned into... well anything that isn't blood is probably bad for you. I'm not sure this spell is well-bounded.I mean, the spell says you can’t turn liquids into toxic or harmful substances, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to mean say that it can’t cause harm or damage to someone. So that prevents you from turning blood into water or an SRO’s oil into saltwater or a Sleifera‘s hydro body (sp? The fish people from the Azlanti) into lemonade.
Yeah no sane GM would let you turn enemies' blood to water with a no-save cantrip. But it should really have had some restriction on affecting attended liquids.
The Acid Rain spell actually has some decent potential long term damage if you can cast it and then wall in your enemies. The save does not actually allow you to reduce the 3d6 damage per round, and you can change the energy type after the first round to something they don't have resistance to if acid doesn't fit.
I have new respect for the 5th level Witchwarper spell Reality Bend. But don’t use it in combat to shift allies 10 feet for trivialities like flanking, use it in combination with a form of X-ray vision to move allies 10’ through walls or doors. The only limitation is that the space they move to is one they are willing and able to occupy.
It has an unlimited concentration +1 duration, so you can move action plus concentrate your way through an entire complex while you patiently look through walls and move yourself and allies across them. It’s a form of group ethereal jaunt with some limitations but also some benefits in the right circumstances.
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About 1/3rd of the technomancer spells got nixed for Society play, including Hoverdisk, Optimize Tech, Instant Upgrade, and Know Coordinates. Basically all of the spells identified above as powerful/busted.
Miasma didn't get banned, surprisingly.
You read my mind with both of these comments.
It's a little weird that the Technomancer list was the only one that got shredded, as the Witchwarper has some exceptionally strong spells flying under the radar. Hateful Visage trivializes any encounter whose opponents can be feared, as at a very least it gives you the ability to make a move-action demoralize that auto-succeeds and knocks an opponent out of combat for 1+ rounds depending on how much you optimized demoralize duration.
But I suppose they didn't want to touch the new class' toys.
r. Hateful Visage trivializes any encounter whose opponents can be feared, as at a very least it gives you the ability to make a move-action demoralize that auto-succeeds and knocks an opponent out of combat for 1+ rounds depending on how much you optimized demoralize duration..
Oh come on it's not tha...
*looks it up*
Oh. WOW. Yeah. Its that bad.
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I agree with them that the Mystic-only spells pose no threat to game balance.
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Also surprised that Reality Shift snuck through, as its a personal-only dimension door as a 2nd level spell. Being up to 30ft off-target will make a difference sometimes, but mostly you'll be able to work around it or take a measly d6 damage and shrug it off.
But Nanite Form got banhammered, even though its just a slightly better gaseous form with exactly the same degree of infiltration potential.
I don’t understand how the Glitch Step hack made it in but not Nanite Form.
I assume I'm missing some kind of super busted use for Nanite Form. But it disallows both attacking and spellcasting, so I'm not sure what that use is.
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I assume I'm missing some kind of super busted use for Nanite Form. But it disallows both attacking and spellcasting, so I'm not sure what that use is.
Construct immunities would allow you to avoid/shed a looooot of conditions. It'd basically trump every mystic condition removal spell.
Construct immunities would allow you to avoid/shed a looooot of conditions. It'd basically trump every mystic condition removal spell.
Does it really remove conditions like that?
The reason why I ask is because I think you still need to make a saving throw to get rid of stuff like that but i also think conditions wouldn't effect you while in nanite form.|
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Construct immunities would allow you to avoid/shed a looooot of conditions. It'd basically trump every mystic condition removal spell.
Does it really remove conditions like that?
The reason why I ask is because I think you still need to make a saving throw to get rid of stuff like that but i also think conditions wouldn't effect you while in nanite form.
If you're immune to a condition, you can't have that condition. If it only suspended the condition, that would have been less bad, because then this wouldn't be the super cure spell. It would still be really really strong for handling difficult environments and nasty monster though, construct immunities cover a LOT of things.
If you're immune to a condition, you can't have that condition. If it only suspended the condition, that would have been less bad, because then this wouldn't be the super cure spell. It would still be really really strong for handling difficult environments and nasty monster though, construct immunities cover a LOT of things.Construct immunities would allow you to avoid/shed a looooot of conditions. It'd basically trump every mystic condition removal spell.
Does it really remove conditions like that?
The reason why I ask is because I think you still need to make a saving throw to get rid of stuff like that but i also think conditions wouldn't effect you while in nanite form.
I still feel like this isn't supposed to be a healing spell, I do like this spell regardless it's a fun idea.
If it works you can get the same effect from Polymorph 2 by adopting SROs racial trait immunity to poison/disease/etc. That's earlier and available to all spellcasters. Not sure how polymorph works in SFS if you try to adopt racial traits from races that you can't play as without a boon. I don't think they did what would be necessary to bar it.
A note on Infect Blood, the no save sicken on a target - it does have a casting time of 1 round, so it's interruptible and skips your party's next turn before it starts effecting the target. That makes it fairly balanced, I'd say.
After comparing this to Psychokinetic Strangulation (which requires a living and breathing target and concentration duration), maybe not so much. If you can get it off this is very fire and forget that is very likely to kill or seriously deplete the HP of anyone you hit with it. Cast, run away, return to mop up. Only a dispel or healing to offset the damage will help your target, 13.5 avg damage per caster level is no joke, even if saves will cut that by 20-40%.
Succeeding the fortitude save does not prevent getting the staggered condition. If you cast this at a single target they're staggered for rounds equal to your caster level. (aka the rest of the fight)
I wouldn't allow that spell then. Staggered in starfinder is dead for a melee character
It sounds like they forgot the standard 'if they succeed on the fortitude save it negates the staggered condition' bit.
I wouldn't allow that spell then. Staggered in starfinder is dead for a melee character
Succeeding the fortitude save does not prevent getting the staggered condition. If you cast this at a single target they're staggered for rounds equal to your caster level. (aka the rest of the fight)
I would absolutely houserule that spell before allowing it in a home game. In an unfortunate oversight, the spell is legal for society games where I don't have that option.
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When I said "houserule that spell" I just meant have the save negate the stagger. Building every encounter around enemies capable of answering the threat of no save perma-stagger would not actually be good for variety in the game.
Honestly, I find that it doesn't list a damage type to be more annoying.
It's not unprecedented. Disintegrate doesn't have a damage type, nor Mind Thrust.
It's not even unprecedented for weapons - see the psychic wave cannons.