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Since I've been building my Vanguard now and looking closely at the finalized version, I noticed something.
So Solarians get Glow of Life. Operatives get Field Treatment(I know, takes 1 minute). The Vanguard Inversion Aspect's catalyst recovers Level x2 Stamina of all allies EXCEPT you within 60ft, the Improved does Level x3 HIT POINTS!
Designers, why doesn't the "tank" class have any ability to heal itself? I get that they can reduce damage with Mitigate and Vanguard Disciples and can take the Enhanced Resistance feat for DR, but even the other "magical" battle-guy can give himself DR with Dark Matter and take the same feat.
Solarians have Glow of Life as an option for in-combat staying power, couldn't you have at least given the Vanguard a less powerful version? You even gave them Flashing Strikes.
Field treatment is an out of combat heal but really, all classes can heal themselves just fine outside combat.
Not all classes need to heal in combat. In my experience, the need for in combat healing is very low. Outside of questionably effective first aid, soldiers can't, operatives can't, technomancers can't (without necrografts/other shenanigans) mechanics can't... why does the vanguard need in combat healing?
Vanguard is basically a tank that yes does not heal itself, but the way the class was designed it doesn't really need to. With the encouragement of CON as the key ability score it makes that 10 min rest way more impact-full. As well as having entropic strike be DEX to hit adds more encouragement into damage reduction. The GM shouldn't have an encounter that can't be handled by good coordinated players or focus solely on the vanguard to where he is taken out super early. But as stated previously your 10 min rest as a vanguard will seem more impactfull than other classes out of combat healing.
Additionally if you need a little healing boost there are a few classes that can heal in combat which makes the already high damage mitigation of the vanguard much harder to take down. And if nothing else I think it might be for balance as a clearly tanky class that proves hard to take down also gets self healing might push it overboard into unbalanced territory.
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Field treatment is an out of combat heal...
Operatives get Field Treatment(I know, takes 1 minute).
I gladly acknowledged that Operatives have a self-heal, but it obviously can't be used in combat.
Not all classes need to heal in combat. In my experience, the need for in combat healing is very low. Outside of questionably effective first aid, soldiers can't, operatives can't, technomancers can't (without necrografts/other shenanigans) mechanics can't... why does the vanguard need in combat healing?
I feel they kinda do since they are pushed toward melee combat which usually means not getting the benefit of cover. In my experience it usually means being the focus for the enemies during combat. Van's get shields, but enemies already have a "magical" +2 on their attack rolls. If the enemies have guns, I'm getting shot at, if they don't I'm getting beaten on.
Vanguards only have so many reactions(even with extra ones) so over time, the damage they are taking is adding up. I'm wondering how I'm supposed to get through fights without a Mystic or Biohacker next to me.If the "after 3 rounds I'm a living grenade" Solarian can somehow heal itself with starfire or gravity, then how can the Vanguard not heal itself when...
The Vanguard Inversion Aspect's catalyst recovers Level x2 Stamina of all allies EXCEPT you within 60ft, the Improved does Level x3 HIT POINTS!
...and not be able to patch himself up just a little bit. All allies within 60ft?!
Glow of Life: As a move action, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to recover a number of Hit Points equal to twice your solarian level. Once you use this revelation, you can’t use it again until the next time you regain Stamina Points after a 10-minute rest.
When you are attuned or fully attuned, increase the amount you heal with this revelation to three times your solarian level.
Works once in a combat and costs Resolve, pretty reasonable. Vanguard could've healed Hit Points equal to their vanguard level or 1-1/2 times their vanguard level. OK, but less than the Solarian's twice or three times level healing. And Vanguard still has Mitigate and Flatten Bullets and its other built in damage reducing options. And the healing is only Hit Points, so you only doing it when all your Stamina is gone and you're taking hits to the grill.
why does the vanguard need in combat healing?
Simple. To keep on tanking.
I still think the Vanguard is awesome, but I'm just waiting to see if this character can actually survive long enough to get to higher levels.
I still think the Vanguard is awesome, but I'm just waiting to see if this character can actually survive long enough to get to higher levels.
Anecdotal evidence and all, but my solarian player survived just fine without glow of life, and they had no damage mitigation besides enhanced resistance.
But, my players very rarely went into combat without stamina, and tended to switch from aggressive play when they had their stamina, to pulling back and attempting their ranged options when they ran out in combat.
Occasionally the solarian would go all out until he went down, but they had a mystic to handle out of combat healing (and yes, the mystic waited until out of combat for all except two fights)
I guess... I'm questioning the kind of game you're playing where you end up in HP every fight you get into and not just the difficult one or two fights a day? 3xlvl healing isn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things even if it did heal the vanguard too.
The kind of fight where that sort of action is the difference between success and failure had to be CR=APL+4 or more in my games... but maybe something else is happening in your experience.
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Designers, why doesn't the "tank" class have any ability to heal itself? I get that they can reduce damage with Mitigate and Vanguard Disciples and can take the Enhanced Resistance feat for DR, but even the other "magical" battle-guy can give himself DR with Dark Matter and take the same feat.
Solarians have Glow of Life as an option for in-combat staying power, couldn't you have at least given the Vanguard a less powerful version? You even gave them Flashing Strikes.
My guess would be "because then it's not doing its job as a tank as effectively". By healing everyone but yourself, you're keeping the focus on yourself as the primary target by making it difficult to kill your allies while you're still standing. This redirects attention away from the vanguard's allies since it's effectively pointless to keep attacking the allies while there's a vanguard who can drop 50% of each ally's Hit Points in healing with his catalyst on the battlefield, while encouraging the enemy to go after the vanguard since they're the only opponent on the field who's not subject to the burst healing. Since the point in time where this is most likely to come into play is when the vanguard is weakened already, it means the party can quickly bounce back from an AoE and the healer (if any) only needs to focus on one target.
It's essentially an aggro mechanic that doesn't give the vanguard a "telekinesis or telepathy aura" to artificially modify the rest of the party's defenses or abilities (or the enemies' offense or abilities) but instead uses the game's own internal logic to dictate the cost/benefit of targeting the various party members. It requires the enemy to be smart enough to recognize what's happening on some level, but that's fairly common in Starfinder.
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I think it's really just that vanguards are tough enough as is and have absolutely no need to add self healing on top. We also know that the designers realized that vanguards are tough enough already, or they wouldn't have reduced the hp/sp per level from the playtest version.
I've only played at two tables with them, and both the L1 and the L4 pregen versions desperately needed 'outside healing' to remain 'standing'.
When that wasn't provided in-combat they went down and were burning Resolve like it was paper money after a period of inflation.
I've only played at two tables with them, and both the L1 and the L4 pregen versions desperately needed 'outside healing' to remain 'standing'.When that wasn't provided in-combat they went down and were burning Resolve like it was paper money after a period of inflation.
In my AtAT group, the vanguard's toughness started becoming pretty apparent by level 4, even when things turned into an insane marathon length combat.
In Signal of Screams, my vanguard spent 2 resolve over the course of a full AP book.
I haven't looked at whether the pregen is really badly built in some way, but I have to ask whether there was particularly bad luck or whether some peculiar tactical were decisions made with these pregens to end up in such dire straits.
I have, with the soldier and solarian, seen low level groups try to go full MMO tank tactics, and have 5 people hiding behind cover while 1 designated tank who is a bit tougher stands out in the open and... well.. no level 1 character survives that in Starfinder and it's a bad idea to attempt it. But I don't know if your tables looked anything like that.
More like the class is touted as 'main tank' when they'd be best described as 'off-tank w/lots of external supplemental healing required'.
Folks when they tried to do the 'main tank' (grab all the attention and focus) tended to go down pretty quickly.
Folks when supporting whoever the unlucky sod(not them) is that got all the enemy melee attention tended to do better.
If anything, the equal-opportunity dice hatred kept them in the fight longer than it should have been possible.