paizo.com Recent Posts in Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.paizo.com Recent Posts in Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.2020-01-25T15:06:04Z2020-01-25T15:06:04ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.Lightning Ravenhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#122020-02-04T13:47:27Z2020-02-04T13:47:27Z<div class="messageboard-quotee">breithauptclan wrote:</div><blockquote><p> Unfortunately, Starfinder still uses the D&D 3 style of multiclassing. Which means that when you multiclass, you are trading out the highest level powers of your primary class, for the low level powers of the secondary class.</p>
<p>This works fine at lower levels. The Envoy(4) abilities that you are losing by becoming Envoy(3)/Biohacker(1) aren't much less powerful than the level 1 spells you gain from the Biohacker.</p>
<p>But then imagine that you are Envoy(14)/Biohacker(1) instead of Envoy(15). Maybe for Envoy it still wouldn't make much difference. <b>I don't remember off-hand what level 15 gives for Envoy</b>.</blockquote><p>You can't remember off-hand because there's absolutely nothing. At least nothing new that you never got before. Just an Expertise Talent, the least exciting abilities one could ever gain, but at least some of them are useful if not interesting.breithauptclan wrote:Unfortunately, Starfinder still uses the D&D 3 style of multiclassing. Which means that when you multiclass, you are trading out the highest level powers of your primary class, for the low level powers of the secondary class.
This works fine at lower levels. The Envoy(4) abilities that you are losing by becoming Envoy(3)/Biohacker(1) aren't much less powerful than the level 1 spells you gain from the Biohacker.
But then imagine that you are Envoy(14)/Biohacker(1)...Lightning Raven2020-02-04T13:47:27ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.BigNorseWolfhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#112020-02-04T05:56:20Z2020-02-04T05:56:20Z<p>Envoys level off after 8 and stop completely after 12, so not the best point comparison.</p>Envoys level off after 8 and stop completely after 12, so not the best point comparison.BigNorseWolf2020-02-04T05:56:20ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.breithauptclanhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#102020-02-04T05:13:17Z2020-02-04T05:13:17Z<p>Unfortunately, Starfinder still uses the D&D 3 style of multiclassing. Which means that when you multiclass, you are trading out the highest level powers of your primary class, for the low level powers of the secondary class.</p>
<p>This works fine at lower levels. The Envoy(4) abilities that you are losing by becoming Envoy(3)/Biohacker(1) aren't much less powerful than the level 1 spells you gain from the Biohacker.</p>
<p>But then imagine that you are Envoy(14)/Biohacker(1) instead of Envoy(15). Maybe for Envoy it still wouldn't make much difference. I don't remember off-hand what level 15 gives for Envoy. But I imagine that losing out on some level 15 abilities in order to get a couple of level 1 spells won't seem so powerful of a choice.</p>
<p>Personally I would rather have (houserule'd or official) some Magic-based archetypes. That way you are at least only trading out fixed-level abilities from your main class to gain some of the powers and flavor from the other class.</p>Unfortunately, Starfinder still uses the D&D 3 style of multiclassing. Which means that when you multiclass, you are trading out the highest level powers of your primary class, for the low level powers of the secondary class.
This works fine at lower levels. The Envoy(4) abilities that you are losing by becoming Envoy(3)/Biohacker(1) aren't much less powerful than the level 1 spells you gain from the Biohacker.
But then imagine that you are Envoy(14)/Biohacker(1) instead of Envoy(15). Maybe...breithauptclan2020-02-04T05:13:17ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.Lightning Ravenhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#92020-02-03T14:45:50Z2020-02-03T14:45:50Z<div class="messageboard-quotee">synethe wrote:</div><blockquote><p> I totally meant to respond back and thank you guys for the responses, since I wrote the first post I'd considered action economy as suggested by Lightning Raven and the usage of improvisations. I sort of realized I may be playing Envoy wrong because I don't use many improvisations to begins with- largely they seem like something to apply as-needed versus constantly on turns... and at present my only two that I have are Don't Quit and Not in the Face.</p>
<p>Dipping from Envoy 3 to Witchwarper 1 has actually added some really interesting flavor in terms of the spells like Charming Veneer, Charm Person, Mending, etc. as well as the Infinite Worlds additions. It definitely takes away from doing improvisations all the time; but it sort of made things a bit more fun when I could wreck a terrain, do more CC, and have a little more capability to make combat smoother.</p>
<p>The ST/GM/DM so far has been cool with streamlining some of the issues we've run into since our party is 2 Solarian's, 1 Technomancer, 1 Operative, 1 Soldier, and me :D so things seem to be okay! But I can definitely see what eddv was pointing out about Reality Glimmer.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your help! </blockquote><p>You're not playing the Envoy wrong at all! You just chose two improvisations that are situational. The thing is, there's basically three main "roads" you can follow as an Envoy from the beginning, these three are improvisations that offer broad benefits without relying on specific conditions, they are Get'Em (+1 to hit against one enemy that lasts one round), Clever Feint (gives the Flat-Footed condition to one enemy for one round) and Dispiriting Taunt (gives them Shaken until the end of your next turn, but is an emotion and fear effect, which is tough to use against a lot of enemies). These are the improvisations that you often pick as your "bread and butter" while every other improv is basically something very situational. The thing is, if you're not using them every round, you're not contributing that much as an Envoy in a fight, because you'll be doing things that other characters already can do better. You don't have good precision, so you'll be missing your meager shots mostly every round and when you're hitting your pistol is doing very little damage, harrying and covering fire are also not good as baseline actions (but can be helpful regardless, but with investment they can become quite nice).
<p>Given how your Improvisations are quite situational, I think there will be less competition for your actions, which can let you "squeeze" in the spells. I was working on the baseline that you choose one of the tree I mentioned early because they're proactive improvisations and people tend to gravitate towards them because they like to pick choices that are always useful and it's been pretty standard in TTRPGs since forever that proactive choices trump reactive choices because of how the systems often work.</p>synethe wrote:I totally meant to respond back and thank you guys for the responses, since I wrote the first post I'd considered action economy as suggested by Lightning Raven and the usage of improvisations. I sort of realized I may be playing Envoy wrong because I don't use many improvisations to begins with- largely they seem like something to apply as-needed versus constantly on turns... and at present my only two that I have are Don't Quit and Not in the Face.
Dipping from Envoy 3 to...Lightning Raven2020-02-03T14:45:50ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.synethehttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#82020-02-03T09:29:04Z2020-02-03T09:29:04Z<p>I totally meant to respond back and thank you guys for the responses, since I wrote the first post I'd considered action economy as suggested by Lightning Raven and the usage of improvisations. I sort of realized I may be playing Envoy wrong because I don't use many improvisations to begins with- largely they seem like something to apply as-needed versus constantly on turns... and at present my only two that I have are Don't Quit and Not in the Face.</p>
<p>Dipping from Envoy 3 to Witchwarper 1 has actually added some really interesting flavor in terms of the spells like Charming Veneer, Charm Person, Mending, etc. as well as the Infinite Worlds additions. It definitely takes away from doing improvisations all the time; but it sort of made things a bit more fun when I could wreck a terrain, do more CC, and have a little more capability to make combat smoother.</p>
<p>The ST/GM/DM so far has been cool with streamlining some of the issues we've run into since our party is 2 Solarian's, 1 Technomancer, 1 Operative, 1 Soldier, and me :D so things seem to be okay! But I can definitely see what eddv was pointing out about Reality Glimmer.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your help!</p>I totally meant to respond back and thank you guys for the responses, since I wrote the first post I'd considered action economy as suggested by Lightning Raven and the usage of improvisations. I sort of realized I may be playing Envoy wrong because I don't use many improvisations to begins with- largely they seem like something to apply as-needed versus constantly on turns... and at present my only two that I have are Don't Quit and Not in the Face.
Dipping from Envoy 3 to Witchwarper 1 has...synethe2020-02-03T09:29:04ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.Lightning Ravenhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#72020-02-03T09:33:17Z2020-01-27T04:21:05Z<div class="messageboard-quotee">eddv wrote:</div><blockquote><p> I think envoy action economy can work really well with spellcasting </p>
<p>BUT the bonuses you can confer with just a small envoy dip arent all that impressive</p>
<p>I think if you do something a bit off kilter like maybe </p>
<p>Watch Your Step or Coordinated Reload or even Look Alive </p>
<p>You can grab some Envoy flavor and the skill boost while still going full on witchwarper. </p>
<p>I don't think a witchwarper dip does a ton for an envoy though - I would probably rather drop a feat on reality glimmer to grab a spell than lose out on envoy progression for a few cantrips and 2 spells. </p>
<p>(as an aside I think Quick Quaff on a biohacker who dips envoy is interesting) </blockquote><p>If some debuff improvisations of the envoy lasted a bit longer, or even gave a chance to, it would make the class run so much smother and in turn allow more variation. Currently you can either keep doing your bread and butter every round and deviating in the rare occasions other options arise. The sad thing is that since they mostly only last a single round, they compete with each other EVERY round and instead of being actually meaningful choices, you're only choosing minor buffs that may or may not make a difference in the round (which only makes it a wasted action).
<p>With more lasting Improvs (Get'em and Clever feint, more specifically), more improvisations that either use your swift actions from the get go (or become swift over levels) and some that allow you to do them and move either full movement or even half, could make the class much more interesting in the battlefield. It would also allow you to MC into other stuff and actually get to use their stuff (spells, tricks, etc) while also doing your main job of buffing and debuffing. I, for one, would be way more interested in playing this hypothetical Envoy over playing it as it currently is one more time. Fun and amazing characters you can do for any class/race/concept but only a smoothly designed class make it satisfying in action.</p>eddv wrote:I think envoy action economy can work really well with spellcasting
BUT the bonuses you can confer with just a small envoy dip arent all that impressive
I think if you do something a bit off kilter like maybe
Watch Your Step or Coordinated Reload or even Look Alive
You can grab some Envoy flavor and the skill boost while still going full on witchwarper.
I don't think a witchwarper dip does a ton for an envoy though - I would probably rather drop a feat on reality glimmer to...Lightning Raven2020-01-27T04:21:05ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.eddvhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#62020-02-03T09:33:15Z2020-01-27T01:04:52Z<p>I think envoy action economy can work really well with spellcasting </p>
<p>BUT the bonuses you can confer with just a small envoy dip arent all that impressive</p>
<p>I think if you do something a bit off kilter like maybe </p>
<p>Watch Your Step or Coordinated Reload or even Look Alive </p>
<p>You can grab some Envoy flavor and the skill boost while still going full on witchwarper. </p>
<p>I don't think a witchwarper dip does a ton for an envoy though - I would probably rather drop a feat on reality glimmer to grab a spell than lose out on envoy progression for a few cantrips and 2 spells. </p>
<p>(as an aside I think Quick Quaff on a biohacker who dips envoy is interesting)</p>I think envoy action economy can work really well with spellcasting
BUT the bonuses you can confer with just a small envoy dip arent all that impressive
I think if you do something a bit off kilter like maybe
Watch Your Step or Coordinated Reload or even Look Alive
You can grab some Envoy flavor and the skill boost while still going full on witchwarper.
I don't think a witchwarper dip does a ton for an envoy though - I would probably rather drop a feat on reality glimmer to grab a spell...eddv2020-01-27T01:04:52ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.BigNorseWolfhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#52020-02-03T09:33:14Z2020-01-26T17:14:09Z<p>Envoy action economy works well when firing an unwieldy weapon or swinging an unwieldy stick. It doesn't combine well with anything else</p>Envoy action economy works well when firing an unwieldy weapon or swinging an unwieldy stick. It doesn't combine well with anything elseBigNorseWolf2020-01-26T17:14:09ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.Metaphysicianhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#42020-02-03T09:33:12Z2020-01-26T15:13:03Z<div class="messageboard-quotee">Lightning Raven wrote:</div><blockquote><p> One of the biggest struggles the Envoy has is with the action economy, in fact, it is by far the class' biggest weakness. I think that a Witchwarper, as a spellcasting class, would also "hijack" the priority list of your action economy a good chunk of the time because Spells are very strong due to their limited nature, which makes their impact a lot higher than using an Envoy's improvisation.</p>
<p>I don't exactly know how things would work, but when you're an Envoy, you need to be using your abilities every round in order to make the class do its job in combat (which is a damn shame, because using the same s#&& over and over because of their weak impact was one of the biggest disappointments I've had with it).</p>
<p>But, regardless, I think your idea fits quite well and you should pick it up and give it a try. Maybe it can be the right spice for the Envoy's bland gameplay, since spells can provide an option in some situations that an Envoy would never have. </blockquote><p>Random thought: rework some of the Envoy improvisations, the ones that tend to be used round after round, so that they are sustained. You Get Em once, and then just need to spend your quick action each round to keep it going. Thus, you are free to move, attack, or use other one-shot improvisations, introducing more variety, while also still having a limit ( you can only sustain one improv at the same time, and you won't be doing any full actions while so doing ).Lightning Raven wrote:One of the biggest struggles the Envoy has is with the action economy, in fact, it is by far the class' biggest weakness. I think that a Witchwarper, as a spellcasting class, would also "hijack" the priority list of your action economy a good chunk of the time because Spells are very strong due to their limited nature, which makes their impact a lot higher than using an Envoy's improvisation.
I don't exactly know how things would work, but when you're an Envoy, you need...Metaphysician2020-01-26T15:13:03ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.Lightning Ravenhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#32020-02-03T09:33:09Z2020-01-25T21:52:30Z<p>One of the biggest struggles the Envoy has is with the action economy, in fact, it is by far the class' biggest weakness. I think that a Witchwarper, as a spellcasting class, would also "hijack" the priority list of your action economy a good chunk of the time because Spells are very strong due to their limited nature, which makes their impact a lot higher than using an Envoy's improvisation.</p>
<p>I don't exactly know how things would work, but when you're an Envoy, you need to be using your abilities every round in order to make the class do its job in combat (which is a damn shame, because using the same s&#% over and over because of their weak impact was one of the biggest disappointments I've had with it).</p>
<p>But, regardless, I think your idea fits quite well and you should pick it up and give it a try. Maybe it can be the right spice for the Envoy's bland gameplay, since spells can provide an option in some situations that an Envoy would never have.</p>One of the biggest struggles the Envoy has is with the action economy, in fact, it is by far the class' biggest weakness. I think that a Witchwarper, as a spellcasting class, would also "hijack" the priority list of your action economy a good chunk of the time because Spells are very strong due to their limited nature, which makes their impact a lot higher than using an Envoy's improvisation.
I don't exactly know how things would work, but when you're an Envoy, you need to be using your...Lightning Raven2020-01-25T21:52:30ZRe: Forums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.BigNorseWolfhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#22020-02-03T09:33:08Z2020-01-25T18:52:51Z<p>Mechanically they won't work very well together. A dip for flavor might work, or at least not hurt too bad, but trying to do say witchwarper 3 envoy 3 would hurt.</p>Mechanically they won't work very well together. A dip for flavor might work, or at least not hurt too bad, but trying to do say witchwarper 3 envoy 3 would hurt.BigNorseWolf2020-01-25T18:52:51ZForums: Advice: Considering multi-classing on Envoy, advice wanted.synethehttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x1q?Considering-multiclassing-on-Envoy-advice-wanted#12020-01-25T15:06:04Z2020-01-25T15:06:04Z<p>Hi! I'm completely new to TTRPGs (I've just started getting into them late last year) and I recently got invited to a D&D5E campaign lead by some friends and after a time- we decided to do Starfinder to try something new. Most of them are familiar with Pathfinder and D&D3.5 and they've done a wonderful job walking me through creation, rules etc and I've read a lot; but I'm curious about multi-classing.</p>
<p>I have a -really- good statted Envoy (we did rolled stats and my rolls were insanely lucky), but I recently saw Witchwarper and thought that it might be really good to blend the two in a way since hitting level 3 on Envoy... because it fits the character's experiences, personality, and interests in the homebrew story arc we're going through right now in the campaign.</p>
<p>She's Damaya Lashunta Envoy and former Pirate with a Robin Hood complex who liked to sack rich people and luxury vessels to give things to those who needed it. Eventually she faked IDs and started running around with a new alias. Our campaign however saw her starting to understand the multiverse and parallel and infinite realities after getting brainjacked by a psionic and exposed to the world beyond what she knew and now she's become sort of like... Peter Quill after the Infinity Stone incident meets Doctor Strange.</p>
<p>I'm sure that from a story point of view it works; but I'm curious on the mechanical perspective if it would be wise and what general advice would be for it.</p>Hi! I'm completely new to TTRPGs (I've just started getting into them late last year) and I recently got invited to a D&D5E campaign lead by some friends and after a time- we decided to do Starfinder to try something new. Most of them are familiar with Pathfinder and D&D3.5 and they've done a wonderful job walking me through creation, rules etc and I've read a lot; but I'm curious about multi-classing.
I have a -really- good statted Envoy (we did rolled stats and my rolls were insanely...synethe2020-01-25T15:06:04Z