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What are people's thoughts on their favorite fields of study? You get three out of five, so it's important to decide which you want as well as which to prioritize, as the second and third come at 7th and 13th level, respectively.
Genetics
Booster: 60 minutes of blindsense or Blind Fight feat is pretty great. This is literally the only booster of any kind that last more than key attribute rounds.
Inhibitor: Impose an energy vulnerability, remove an immunity, or reduce energy resistance (but fixed and your basic inhibitor eventually scales higher at 17th level). Also great for focusing down a tough enemy if your party has a shared energy type that is rarely resisted. Studious biohackers should use Spark of Ingenuity to combine this with the -2 AC basic inhibitor.
Breakthrough: Suppress all ability damage/drain, for an impressive duration at higher levels. You don't need this often, but when you do it'll be huge. Not very easy (possible?) to replicate outside of a Mystic who knows the right spells.
Assessment: This is pretty much a must have, everything is useful. A contender for my first or second pick on every biohacker. Although I can also see focusing on toxicology (see below) and letting this one pass if my party doesn't want to coordinate energy to burn things down.
Immunology
Booster: +2 enhancement to Fortitude seems great at lower levels, but the very short duration means it's eating up a round in combat, and might be obsolete once most of the party has a Ring of Resistance or Black Heart. There are certainly situations where I'd use a standard action to give an ally a 10% boost on fortitude saves for the remainder of the combat, but lots of those are poisons where a biohacker has other options.
Inhibitor: Impose a -2 to Fortitude saves. Strong as a set up for an ally spell or your own Tranq Dart, Superserum, or poison attack, but much more limited than the Sicken effect of the Toxicology field of study (see below). But if you're studious it's a hell of a combo with that inhibitor to place both via Spark of Ingenuity for an effective -4.
Breakthrough: Allows someone to ignore the effects of the highest disease stage for a good duration. COM gave lots of boosts to avoiding disease, but this is still a good final insurance policy.
Assessment: Everything is solid, but nothing is great in comparison to other options. I'd consider taking this as a second or third option on a studious biohacker who wanted to combo the Inhibitor with toxicology's.
Neurochemistry
Booster: Allow an ally to ignore confused/staggered effects. You will definitely be happy to spend a standard action to strip one of these away from an ally mid-combat, it will more than pay for itself if they're suffering a multiround effect.
Inhibitor: Impose a -2 to will saves. You have zero abilities that rely on a will saving throw, so this is purely useful to caster allies, mostly Mystics and Witchwarpers. If you're in a party with one and studious, consider this for the combo with toxicology for the -4 to will saves.
Breakthrough: Grants a +4 enhancement to mind affecting for 1 minute. Duration is not meaningfully longer than the immunology fort booster for most purposes, but it is stronger and being a breakthrough means that while you only have one available it doesn't compete with biohack uses. But what you're really here for is the option to grant a new save with a +2 bonus to someone currently suffering a mind-affecting effect. Getting rid of that dominate, suggestion, or hold person effect can be a life saver.
Assessment: A great booster and breakthrough when faced with mental attacks (note that all the COM classes and the mechanic are the weak will save classes) and a good inhibitor if you're playing with a spellcaster. Probably not my first field of study, but a decent second or third choice.
Pharmacology
Booster: Immunity to or end bleed effects. Meh. Particularly marginal if you are studious and have the medicinals theorem to get coagulants (which you really should), even if those come with some penalties. But it's there if you want the rest of the package.
Inhibitor: Inflict encumbered, and fort save or become entangled. Encumbered is a nothing condition on NPCs unless your GM makes up an AC penalty to apply, and the save makes entangled less of an issue. If it lands it's good, though.
Breakthrough: It's the neurochemistry booster, but instead of mind-affecting it boosts saves against or gives a reroll on pain, sicken, and nausea effects. Less important effects, but the bonus does scale. Note that an intuitive biohacker can already remove sickened with his Spark of Ingenuity and the 2nd level Treat Condition theorem does as well. It's ok? Nauseated is certainly a bad condition when it comes up, but 8th level Improved Treat Condition takes care of that.
Assessment: This is my least favorite field of study that I would never take. Bleed isn't that bad of a condition (and coagulants downsides are ok if I really need to stop a bleed), encumbered is useless and entangled is too uncertain, and the breakthrough is too easy to replace with the wider capability of the treat condition line of theorems.
Toxicology
Booster: Natural attackers take a -2 penalty to hit you. Poison effect. This is stronger than the +1 AC booster if your melee dude is mixing it up with some animals trying to bite or claw him. I don't love booster as a class, but this is one of the better ones.
Inhibitor: Inflict the sickened condition. -2 to attacks, all saves, all skill/ability checks, and damage. This is by far the best inhibitor, held back only by the poison tag.
Breakthrough: This suppresses a poison's highest stage the way immunology's breakthrough suppresses a poison, although naturally for less duration. This is going to be more urgent and more frequently needed in combat than disease mitigation, making this an excellent breakthrough.
Assessment: This gives genetics competition for best field of study, everything else is second tier. At the same time, I wouldn't necessarily take both. Toxicology combined with both Immunology and Neurochemistry is very strong for condition mitigation and allows you with studious Spark of Ingenuity to inflict a -4 to Fort or Will. If you're a spellcaster save or lose heavy party instead of blasters and energy shooters that might be best. And relying on this inhibitor as your bread and butter and not worrying about genetics one is very defensible, too.
All of them are pretty good but I really like the toxicology one. A lot of my adventures are exploring new worlds and people getting chewed on by local wildlife is pretty common. Giving all the local wildlife -2 to hit their target they are trying to munch on really seems useful.
A lot of which is best comes with what your group looks like. If you have a bunch of spell casters grabbing one that helps tank a specific resist to help them land their abilities.
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Something else to note: Toxicology becomes even more useful if you get the 8th-level Powerful Biohacks theorem, since it can remove the poison tag from their signature inhibitor.
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I'm not sure the Genetics Inhibitor actually causes the Vulnerability universal monster rule. It doesn't actually call it out or give a page reference to it, which is rather strange for something that you'd have to look up in another book. Also, it's insanely strong. Finally, every other field of study starts the text of their inhibitor with a bit of fluff explaining what is happening before going on to give explicit mechanics. I think "vulnerability" here may just mean "no longer invulnerable", because the main contribution is removing immunities.
Neurochemistry / Encumbered on the other hand, I don't think the Encumbered condition does nothing against NPCs. -5 on Strength and Dex based checks should penalize to-hit and Reflex saves.
Although I think someone goofed by writing that, because there's no save against it. Also Encumbered should never be inflicted by anything than encumbrance, there's also no way to remove it except by removing encumbrance. I think maybe it was supposed to be Fatigued?
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I'm not sure the Genetics Inhibitor actually causes the Vulnerability universal monster rule.
There is no reason to read it that way, at all.
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Neurochemistry / Encumbered on the other hand, I don't think the Encumbered condition does nothing against NPCs. -5 on Strength and Dex based checks should penalize to-hit and Reflex saves.
"Checks" are clearly defined in the rules and don't include saves or attacks.
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I'm not sure the Genetics Inhibitor actually causes the Vulnerability universal monster rule. It doesn't actually call it out or give a page reference to it, which is rather strange for something that you'd have to look up in another book. Also, it's insanely strong. Finally, every other field of study starts the text of their inhibitor with a bit of fluff explaining what is happening before going on to give explicit mechanics. I think "vulnerability" here may just mean "no longer invulnerable", because the main contribution is removing immunities.
Neurochemistry / Encumbered on the other hand, I don't think the Encumbered condition does nothing against NPCs. -5 on Strength and Dex based checks should penalize to-hit and Reflex saves.
Although I think someone goofed by writing that, because there's no save against it. Also Encumbered should never be inflicted by anything than encumbrance, there's also no way to remove it except by removing encumbrance. I think maybe it was supposed to be Fatigued?
Inflicting encumbered as a condition isn't unique to the inhibitor. The Directed Denial of Strength spell inflicts encumbered (or overburdened if actual bulk has already made the target encumbered).
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nhibitor: You deliver a DNA-twisting or material-altering
chemical nanite compound into a creature’s body, imparting
vulnerability to one type of energy (your choice).
Your choice makes no sense if the only use of the ability is to take a chunk off of resistances. It also makes no sense to take a little bit off of resistances rather than switching a weapon out.
It also overlaps with a basic booster option.
Ah, the iconic encounter story shows her giving a vulnerability to acid, and genetics is her pregen field. It’s clear in the story it isn’t overcoming an existing resistance or immunity to acid.
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"Checks" are clearly defined in the rules and don't include saves or attacks.
Neurochemistry / Encumbered on the other hand, I don't think the Encumbered condition does nothing against NPCs. -5 on Strength and Dex based checks should penalize to-hit and Reflex saves.
Well, yes and no. I can see an intent that they don't, but strictly speaking, they don't include them.
Attack Roll
An attack roll is a d20 roll that represents your character’s attempt to strike another creature in combat.Check
A check is a d20 roll that may or may not be modified by your character’s statistics or another value. The most common types are skill checks and ability checks (which determine whether you successfully perform a task), and initiative checks (which determine when you act in combat).
There's nothing in the definition of check that actually excludes attacks, so strictly speaking if you roll a d20 to make an attack then it's a check. However, you would expect attacks to be listed in the "most common types of checks". So it may not be intended. I suspect they weren't quite thorough enough in the definitions because it matters only in niche cases, like the encumbered condition which they rarely expected people to willingly have.
So, if Encumbered doesn't affect attacks/saves, the inhibitor is quite reasonable. If it does, then it's bonkers.
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nhibitor: You deliver a DNA-twisting or material-altering
chemical nanite compound into a creature’s body, imparting
vulnerability to one type of energy (your choice).Your choice makes no sense if the only use of the ability is to take a chunk off of resistances. It also makes no sense to take a little bit off of resistances rather than switching a weapon out.
Basic Inhibitors can't remove immunities, Genetics can. Also, after using Genetics to downgrade an immunity to a resistance, you could add a basic inhibitor to reduce that resistance further. (As far as I've been able to find, the only limit on stacking inhibitors is that you can't have two basic inhibitors on the same critter.)
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I gave you the reasons. Maybe you weren't convinced, but don't act like I didn't even write them.I'm not sure the Genetics Inhibitor actually causes the Vulnerability universal monster rule.There is no reason to read it that way, at all.
They're not reasons.
It doesn't actually call it out
This is a total non statement. You're not saying anything. The words you've put on the page don't mean anything. What does it mean that something is "Actually" called out or .. literally called out?
or give a page reference to it
again, not an argument at all. There are dozens if not 100 game terms in the biohacker (immune, unliving universal monster trait, the bleeding condition, mind affecting effects, poison stages....
without further explanation or page references. That the ability you consider (not without cause) overpowered does not meet a standard that no other biohacker ability lives up to is completely meaningless.
It's like complaining that the word vulnerable isn't blue. No... it isn't blue, but the lack of color change is completely meaningless when color changes aren't used that way
which is rather strange for something that you'd have to look up in another book.
There is absolutely nothing "Strange" about it at all, it happens nearly 100 times on that section.
Also, it's insanely strong.
This is an argument to give it a second reading or try to look at it another way but what you're giving as a reason to read the rules that way here is either patently, observably false or doesn't follow at all.
Finally, every other field of study starts the text of their inhibitor with a bit of fluff explaining what is happening before going on to give explicit mechanics.
Genetics does this as well
You deliver a DNA-twisting or material-altering
chemical nanite compound into a creature’s body, imparting
vulnerability to one type of energy (your choice).
The italicized portion is what you're saying should be there but isn't.
Also, the idea that the first entire sentence is fluff needs to die in a fire (preferably after the biohacker has injected it with magnesium) . It's not an argument, at all. I don't know why people keep trying to say it's a rule no matter how many times exceptions get pointed out, or why people keep thinking "fluff" text doesn't tell you how something works.
On top of that,
Immunology: You deliver a DNA-twisting or material-altering
chemical nanite compound into a creature’s body, imparting
vulnerability to one type of energy (your choice).
The entire immunology inhibitor is one sentence. The idea that the first sentence CAN"T have crunch in it is ridiculous.
Neurochemistry has the same one sentence set up
Toxicology" Inhibitor: You deliver a weak toxin into a living creature’s
body, imparting the sickened condition. This is a poison effect.
The first sentence has most of the crunch. The fluff and crunch are only separated by a comma.
To be an argument you need to have more than words on a page. The words need to start with facts and they then need to rationally proceed to a conclussion.
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The fluff thing is absolutely real for feats, as I’m sure you remember. But it’s clear that vulnerability means the game term in this context.
I just want clarification on toxicology, it was explained to me just now that it does damage as well.
The explanation coming from the phrase, this is a poison effect in the description
So what I'm being told is because it is a poison effect it follows the rules of poison. So lets say my biohack dc is 14, when a creature using natural attacks attacks whomever I have given the booster to they have to roll a fort save of dc 14 or take -2 to hit, if they succeed then they don't take the -2 however on a success or failure poison rules state they take the dc (14) -10 damage.
This means that every time a creature attacks whomever is being effected by the booster with natural weapons then they take 4 damage in this example. And depending on the save may or may not take -2 to attack.
Same with inhibitor, because its a poison effect even if they save vs inhibitor they still take the poison damage.
Is this right?
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No. Being a poison effect doesn't add an unstated save to those biohacks.
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The poison effect tag just is there to indicate if something has resistances/immunities to poison then they would be resistant/immune to that hack. It is not adding any kind of extra save.
Neurochemistry / Encumbered on the other hand, I don't think the Encumbered condition does nothing against NPCs. -5 on Strength and Dex based checks should penalize to-hit and Reflex saves.
Settled by FAQ. It's basically on a speed penalty against NPCs, no relevant checks in combat (the odd acrobatics or stealth specialist aside) and no AC penalty for NPCs.
Another thing weighing against the pharmacology field is Near Space's introduction of the Formian Venomcaster, which is a slightly better version (damage/range/capacity) of the very good COM injection rifle at the cost of unwieldy but also providing the entangle weapon quality. Since full attacks aren't necessarily the way you want to go as a biohacker, I think this is a pretty great option that completely kills the pharmacology field if you take it since it entangles automatically on a hit, no save, and doesn't have the mind affecting or poison tags.
The ultimate one shot/single target biohacker debuff is now improved intimidate (move action demoralize), cruel weapon (apply sickened when you hit a shaken creature, taking away some of the need for the toxicology inhibitor), Venomcaster rifle (entangle), and an inhibitor of your choice. Oh, and the maleficient fusion to add on a bestow curse as swift action.
You can inflict a -10 to one or more saves or their attack bonus with all of this, or -8 on those and a -4 to AC. Yikes. Oh, I guess toss on genetics inhibitor for your allies, why not.