COM Solar Flare+Soulfire Fusion


Rules Questions

Wayfinders

9 people marked this as FAQ candidate. 2 people marked this as a favorite.

Looking at building a Solar Flare solarian. When I read the sentence that states "anything that specifically affects solar weapons (such as solarian weapon crystals) affects your solar flare in the same way...." I got excited and thought I would put Solar Flare on it. But then the sentence goes on to semi contradict itself in saying, "....though it can't gain any special weapon property, critical hit effect, or weapon fusion that can't be applied to a small arm."

One half of the sentence seems to state that the Soulfire fusion should work with the solar flare, as your solar flare is meant to be interhangeable for solar weapon, thus granting backwards compatibility for solar flares to be used with the old Revelations and such. But then the back half is being interpreted by some to mean it can't accept weapon fusions that can't go on a small arm.

My thinking is that it should be compatible, since the Flare seems to be intended to be synonymous with the Weapon in regards to the Soulfire fusion. The "can't take fusions that can't be placed on Small Arms" condition seems to be intended more so that you can't put Defending Fusion on the Crystal, since you could normally place it on a Weapon.

So:
-Soulfire fusion applied to Crystal
-Crystal plugged into Flare

Since the Flare is stated to be affected by everything that affects solar weapons, Soulfire should apply Charisma damage to Solar Flare attacks. Yes?

Advocates

11 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber

So, this is not an official clarification or statement, but I am the designer who wrote the COM solarian section. The intent of my design, and how I've been playing solar flare characters, is that Soulfire DOES work with solar flare. Unless an official clarification comes stating otherwise, that's how I'm going to be ruling it.


Man there's a lot of those questions, between this and the Shield, Soulfire, Plasma Sheath and all that noise. And that's just the Solarian.

My assumption would be that any effects that specifically targets "Solar Weapons" will work for the Flare, period.
Everything else will only apply if it could be put on a small arm.
I could see it going the other way, because that can end up being quite strong, but that's how I'd run it until we're told otherwise.
Some FAQs would be really nice, but I understand people are busy.


There is already a FAQ thread asking for clarification on this.

My answer is that, until a FAQ comes out, they don't work together. The 'no fusions that don't work on small arms' clause is absolute. There are no exceptions listed and there hasn't been a dev comment that I know of saying, "yeah we meant to put 'except for Soulfire' on the end of that," yet.

EDIT: I need to learn to read. The dev comment is above, ignore my last sentence. I still say it doesn't work without a FAQ (at least in SFS), but it seems the intent of the person that wrote it was for it to work.

Of course, that makes it on par DPR-wise with high end heavy weapons, but I guess that's alright with everyone.


pithica42 wrote:

There is already a FAQ thread asking for clarification on this.

My answer is that, until a FAQ comes out, they don't work together. The 'no fusions that don't work on small arms' clause is absolute. There are no exceptions listed and there hasn't been a dev comment that I know of saying, "yeah we meant to put 'except for Soulfire' on the end of that," yet.

EDIT: I need to learn to read. The dev comment is above, ignore my last sentence.

She isn't a developer, she's the freelancer who wrote the solar flare turn in. The developers then took that and may have changed it prior to publishing. In any case, their understanding of the rule (which as published is absolutely in opposition to her intent) may not have matched what she thought she was writing.

Only a developer (full time Paizo staff with that job role) opinion speaking in an official capacity is a ruling. Freelancers can offer useful interpretation on one element of intent for ambiguous things, but I agree with you that as published this isn't ambiguous, and I'm going to assume the developers meant what they published (soul fire doesn't work with solar flare) unless they clarify otherwise.

pithica42 wrote:


Of course, that makes it on par DPR-wise with high end heavy weapons, but I guess that's alright with everyone.

That puts it well ahead of high end heavy weapons. Solar flare with solar sheathe and without soul fire fusion is already ahead of high end heavy weapons, and doing pretty darn well even without solar sheathe active.

Catching this sort of balance stuff and correcting it to match overall Paizo design goals is part of what the developers do after receiving the writer's turnover and why you can't assume their intent made it through the process.


I did say, "I still say it doesn't work without a FAQ." That's the only part of my message you didn't quote. Even if they were a developer, the message begins with 'This is not an official clarification or statement'.


I didn't disagree with that, but people mistaking freelancer personal intent clarifications for developer input on what the rules actually are is a recurring problem, even if it was a welcome one in the old Pathfinder Companion days when there was zero chance of any developer input on those shoddily edited rules.

This chaos-inducing contribution by the author is potentially useful, like Owen's "this announcement will change the face of gaming forever and cure cancer" comment ahead of the Alexa announcement, by possibly forcing an early intervention and clarification before things spiral with people printing this thread out to bring to SFS sessions and try to overrule the printed text.

Wayfinders

I do hope that Paizo can be convinced to FAQ this, then.


I do think it would be ok and even a good idea for soulfire to apply to solar flare. The soldier ranged DPR builds are still pretty capable of staying ahead, only the slightly dubious, limiting, and damage delaying assumption of solar flare revelation makes it an issue. A few points of always on soulfire damage would help that, I just think the language as published shouldn’t be interpreted to allow it.

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