I haven't played starfinder since launch and kind of want to come back to the game, maybe planning and running a campaign for my friends in quarantine. I kind of remember when the game started people were concerned that the envoy (probably my favorite of the core classes) and solarian were a little underpowered compared to the other classes. Now I'm wondering, with some time for things to shake out and a few more classes since launch, how does everything stack up? Do classes compare well to each other and if not are there any good fixes for this?
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Solarian is definitely not underpowered. It's a great class, but solar armor is very lackluster and made obsolete by the solar shield in COM.
Envoy can be built well, but it's easy to fall into the trap that is small arms since they don't have longarm proficiency by default.
Operatives are overtuned. They can accidentally get skills as high as another class' special skills without meaning to.
The new witchwarper, while not quite dead on arrival, has class features that compete with each other rather than support each other like the technomancer and mystic.
The soldier and Vanguard stack up pretty well with the solarian. The technomancer and mystic are pretty balanced. The biohacker slots into parties just fine. I've never seen a mechanic in play, nor do I hear much complaining on the boards... so no idea where they fell.
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Mechanic
I think the mechanics problem is that the operative exists. They're both in the semi martial skilled catagory. Even a non techie operative skills up faster at the mechanics specialization than the mechanic does.
Mystics
Mystic revelations added a LOT of versatility to the class. The medic arcthetype (one of the few good archetypes) makes a mystic healer a MUCH more viable character.
Buying spell gems instead of weapons is an emerging meta that allows casters to function more like casters with more spells per day. Since everything in starfinder is essentially a consumable with a limited level life, if you buy X credits worth of gems over 4 levels instead of a gun over 4 levels it's the same thing. My star shaman bought 10 gems of magic missile and uses those when he runs out of spells.
Envoys
The envoy isn't underpowered (till the later levels)
The spoony bards people make out of envoys are underpowered.
The trick is to realize that an envoy actually gets very little out of an 18 charisma. Between the d6s and re rolls on social skills you don't need to eek out every possible + there. It adds very little to your staminia healing, and does almost nothing else for your abilities.
If you can start with a 16 dex and pick up longarms or heavy weapons as you level and shoot things with that the class works very well.A big heavy unwieldy plasmabolter + get em doesn't cost you anything in terms of buffing. It's either a 2 feat investment, or a one level soldier dip.
(I really like the sharpshooter soldier dip. You get longarm proficiency right off the bat, an effective +2 to hit because there is always a vesks tail in the way of your shot, and can use dex for your resolve stat. Since the envoy is one of the few classes that use resolve)
solarions
Shield does everything armor did and more, and has more customization rather than armor just.. sitting there.
One (not very bright, admittedly) silver lining for the witchwarper, IMO: since the paradigm shifts and alternate outcome class features are somewhat limited, a witchwarper can take an archetype without losing much (or can even become more effective).
The base mechanic is mostly OK; as mentioned, an operative can do better on the skill checks, but the mechanic gets some tricks (like Remote Hack) that an operative doesn't have. The Experimental Armor Prototype and Experimental Weapon Prototype alternate class features can give some options that are hard or impossible to get elsewhere (especially the Experimental Armor Prototype). Potentially the biggest issue is the poor Will save.
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Ranged Combat
Ranged combat is overall a little weak compared to melee. Weapon accessories have helped this out a little bit.
Bayonet brackets let you stick weapons on the end of your gun, so you don't need to switch weapons, you can jab people running past you, and you provide flank for your tank when someone comes up to stab you.
Syringe StickOne really good bayonet weapon is the Syringe stick. Not only is it a piercing operative weapon (so shooty guy can use their dex) , but if you put a tier 1 analgesic in it, they're flat footed for 1 round with no save and you can run away.
The Heavy Bipod reduces the penalty for full attacking with a longarm by 2 or a heavy weapon by 1. It does require you spend a move action to stabalize it though. My Ysoki biohacker stabalizes it on her tail in the doorway before opening the door and then goes to town.
The base mechanic is mostly OK; as mentioned, an operative can do better on the skill checks, but the mechanic gets some tricks (like Remote Hack) that an operative doesn't have.
Remote hack is really good, but about the only ability in the game that does something the operative can't do better. The other tricks really only matter if you fail, and if you can't roll below a 10 and you have the highest bonus in the game, the operative failing= everyone else failing too.
To mess up the operative the skill game has to be something like 3 attempts vs. one really really high DC rather than the usual one check.
The new mechanic specializations, despite losing out on some higher level abilities (what do Coordinated Assault and Control Net do if you have neither a drone nor an exocortex?), have some potential for fun shenanigans. I particularly like being able to rework any junk light armor into level-equivalent power armor for an Experimental Armor Prototype, and the buffs to your favorite weapon for the Experimental Weapon Prototype can get weird and excessive (in a good way).
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I haven't played starfinder since launch and kind of want to come back to the game, maybe planning and running a campaign for my friends in quarantine. I kind of remember when the game started people were concerned that the envoy (probably my favorite of the core classes) and solarian were a little underpowered compared to the other classes. Now I'm wondering, with some time for things to shake out and a few more classes since launch, how does everything stack up? Do classes compare well to each other and if not are there any good fixes for this?
My general impression is that when built by an experienced player, class balance is pretty good. The exceptions would be Operative (a little overtuned) and Witchwarper (a little undertuned).
I don't know if there's a general consensus on how to best address this, but here are tweaks I've adopted that influence class balance. (I tend to favor tweaks that are simple, conservative, give rather than take away, and address underlying issues instead of particular classes.)
—1. Everyone gets Double Tap as a free feat.
(This gives a mild boost to classes who only get Small Arms proficiency (including Envoys and Witchwarpers), except Operatives who can't use Double Tap with Trick Attack.)
—2. Skill Focus and Skill Synergy double their insight bonuses at level 11 (like in PF1).
(This gives non-Operative classes, and classes that don't get bonuses to skills, an opportunity to remain competitive in some skills at higher levels.)
—3. Players add their Charisma bonus (or penalty) to their Resolve.
(This makes Charisma less of a dump stat for non Cha-focused classes, and gives a mild boost to the Cha-focused classes (Envoy, Solarian, Witchwarper) by making their resolve-based abilities more useful.)
—4. Witchwarpers can use a resolve point (instead of a spell slot) to produce an infinite worlds effect as if using a spell slot of the highest level the Witchwarper can cast.
(This gives Witchwarpers a way to use one of their main class features without sacrificing another (spells).)
—3. Players add their Charisma bonus (or penalty) to their Resolve.
(This makes Charisma less of a dump stat for non Cha-focused classes, and gives a mild boost to the Cha-focused classes (Envoy, Solarian, Witchwarper) by making their resolve-based abilities more useful.)
Do you mean everyone uses charisma as their resolve stat or they add (or subtract) charisma in addition to their normal key ability modifier? Do charisma based classes add it twice?
Do you mean everyone uses charisma as their resolve stat or they add (or subtract) charisma in addition to their normal key ability modifier? Do charisma based classes add it twice?—3. Players add their Charisma bonus (or penalty) to their Resolve.
(This makes Charisma less of a dump stat for non Cha-focused classes, and gives a mild boost to the Cha-focused classes (Envoy, Solarian, Witchwarper) by making their resolve-based abilities more useful.)
The latter - calculate resolve as you ordinarily do, and then add (subtract) your Charisma modifier after that. This does, indeed, entail that Cha-based classes add their Cha bonus twice.
If there's something odd going on it's that the mechs abilities are mostly optional while an operative can keep pace with a mechanics skill bonus just by having an above average Int.
The operative has easy access to a take 10 ability
The mechanics only tricks to compete with the operative are remote hack, and the ability not to set off a few countermeasures if they fail.
Operatives can get a very similar ability.
Any operative can grab take 10 for those skills though, all for a feat (which they really don't need that many of) even if its not one of their specialty skills.
The mechanic has to burn their tricks and their abilities besides remote hack are really lame, and only matter if you miss.
If the operative is missing with their take 10 ability, you're probably going to trigger something with or withour your counter measures deterent.
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Operatives also do pretty decent damage, especially against foes with elemental weaknesses because trick attack damage just adds to regular damage x'D so you add them together and them multiply by 1.5
Mechanics also have benefits of having drone they are able to ride ;D Aka coolness factor
Anyhoo just to note, witchwarpers are basically just as good as any mystic and technomancer built around mostly casting spells. Only difference is that their main non spell class feature infinite worlds spend spellslots, so its automatically "little bit weaker", but not by much to be honest especially at high levels when spell slots add up to actually have enough of them to not spend them even after full dungeon.
And on sidenote on high level envoy that uses small arms: So party I run devastation ark for has single class envoy that uses small arms an mostly focuses on inspiring boost, my observation is at these levels the boost is pretty super high, though enemies also do ridiculous damage, so what inspiring boost and mystic's heals add up to is each time allowing character to continue standing up one more round after being healed. Small arms without trick attacks do actually still deal pretty decent damage(this IS envoy who had highest dexterity in entire party) even if objectively yeah long arm plus weapon specialization feats would be more optimal, but it does game math wise work well enough from what I've observed so they aren't actually "necessary" so to speak.
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i think we're going to have to disagree on what sufficient or relevant is. It doesn't matter how well you build your character, your weapon puts a hard cap on your ranged damage.
At level 12 the caustoject is doing 4d4 +6 damage (16 average)
the caustolance is doing 5d6+12 =29.5 damage, at longer range.
And its not like ranged is the best source of damage.
Monsters at that level have 250 HP. I don't see what criterea you'd use to say 6% of its hp if you hit is a viable source of damage
With no almost drawbacks. Doing half the damage you could be doing for 2 feats in order to.... something.. makes zero sense.
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See, what you are doing there is comparing damage to what it COULD be rather than what it is :D
Like let's take absolutely best case scenario of comparing level 20 small arms and long arms.(ignoring specific class of character, so no class features that give extra few damage points)
With small arms, best case is paragon glove needler pistol that does 6d12(so max damage of 72, minimum of 6, average of 39) + 10 damage and compare that to... Huh, damage wise best long arm is also a needler weapon, supreme needler rifle with 16d6(so max of 96, minimum of 16, average of 56) + 20 damage.
While its obvious latter is much better weapon for obvious reasons, first one still deals more damage than average damage of mystic spamming mind thrust VI whose opponent keeps succeeding at saves ;D (I checked, thats about 46.75 damage. Sidenote, their average on failure is 93.5 so good for mystics three times per day I guess) And 49 IS bit higher than 10% of 465 hp at CR 20 combatant foes.
Okay kidding aside at how terrible math states that is, point is that even mind thrust VI whose opponent keeps saving the damage still deals enough damage to be meaningful in battle except on terrible rolls(feels bad to roll 17 on 17d10). Its obviously not as good as if opponent failed the save or if character had better weapon, but its high enough to contribute meaningfully. Its different from stuff like "every martial in 1e should take power attack" because math breaks down against pcs if your melee characters doesn't take power attack.
(I'm ignoring crits and that classes with 5 less bab than soldier are likely to miss way more often than soldier does, so logically speaking rifle would still be better since then even if you miss most of time, you would do more damage when you actually hit. Because I don't actually know how to take in account chances of misses and crits in this math x'D)
I'm saying that if it was impossible for envoys to get long arm proficiency, that pistol damage is still sufficiently high enough to keep up the game balance, though it would obviously stronger create impression that envoys (and well any non spell caster class which only has access to small arms and aren't operative) shouldn't focus on dealing damage. Which might be part of logic of why devs did give some classes only small arm proficiency yeah, they might intend those classes to be mostly just support for all I know. Problem here is that its so easy to increase damage for all pistol users(besides operatives) that there is no real reason not to do so unless for some reason have 0 extra feats to spend. THAT or they could just use basic melee weapons instead ;p
Like literally only thing that makes small arms do about as much or more damage as long arms is operative trick attack, I'm pretty sure that halving level bonus to them is just for sake of operatives. That and make two handed ranged weapons more powerful I guess so there isn't reason to always dual wield melee and ranged weapon? *shrugs*
Either way, I'm pretty sure this is one of things they would want to fix if they ever do hypothetical Starfinder 2nd edition x'D Since while I wouldn't call it trap option(as in it doesn't necessary make your character automatically worse by picking it), its definitely no brainer "I want to deal as much damage as soldier, I always pick this" option. And soldiers would still never have reason to use small arms.
...BTW, I learned I should never actually try to check out game design math, I actually have fun with it ._. Which is bizarre since I've never enjoyed math class D: What is this
(well I probably calculated something wrong anyway since I think I'm supposed to suck on math based on my grades x'D)
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Hey it wasn't complaining, it was procrastinating on internet! I wasn't kidding about finding it surprisingly fun attempting figuring that out the best case scenario. My empirical experience is that they tend to deal enough damage to actually matter in fight, but I got really curious about math of it.
But yeah, I would like someone help me out how to calculate that part x'D I guess I could argue "let's assume its soldier using both" but again, why would soldier use small arm?
Like even for sake of joke I only find amusing, there only other BAB 20 classes that have small arm profiency but no long arm profiency are solarian and vanguard... And why you would make solarian/vanguard that doesn't use solarian weapons or entropic strikes instead? That is just not using your main class feature at all. Like yeah... You could make vanguard/soldier/solarian that uses small arms, but that is kinda like saying you could use long arms without proficiency and just take -4 penalty to aim. For sake of arguing why you would use small arms besides "I want to" only possible reason is really "I wanted other feats", so to get accurate reading on this, would have to figure it out from perspective of bab 15 class.(minus operative)
(again, there is no real reason to not just get long arm proficiency and specialty if you want to do more damage so I'm not even trying to argue against that x'D I'm all the way through these posts acknowledging that yeah no long arm damage is just so much better.
I originally wanted to discuss definition of "enough damage to be relevant", but really got sidetracked here by my newfound obsession to actually calculate this fully. Alas I have no idea how to take hit chance in account)
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though it would obviously stronger create impression that envoys (and well any non spell caster class which only has access to small arms and aren't operative) shouldn't focus on dealing damage
This 100% does not hold up with the envoy for two reasons.
The envoys action economy allows you to combine an attack with your buffs. You aren't focusing your actions on your buffing or your attackng with a weapon: they're done at the same time. If the envoy wasn't supposed to be doing damage, why make if functionally a free action to attack?
An envoys feat selection and build doesn't allow for "focusing" on buffing. They have buffing from their class abilities, they have buffing from their feats, and have minimal if any chance to swap one for the other. Even using feats to compensate for bluff (improved feint./greater improved feint) leaves you more than enough feats to get longarm proficiency.
A pistol using envoy isn't more "focused" on buffing than a longarm using envoy. They're just strictly worse at damage with no discernable increase in envoying.
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For figuring out average damage, what you're doing is considering what happens on every roll of a d20 from 1 to 20 then averaging it.
For your pistol shooting envoy you have to consider the possibility that you miss. So if you hit on an 8 or higher You have a
35% Chance of doing 0 damage {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}= .35 X0= 0
A 60% chance of doing damage (.60* average damage)
A 5% chance of doing double damage ((.05 X 2 X average Damage))
With spells that are save for half you're doing
%chance of save X .50 average damage
%chance of failing save X average damage.
There are other subjective/circumstantial considerations, like guaranteed damage being able to take someone out if they're on their last legs.
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Yeah got bit sidetracked there x'D I have to say that I don't actually think that myself, that was speculation on "why" soldier is only class that gets long arm proficiency as freebie ("soldiers use big guns that do lot of damage"). I like trying to reverse engineer design thought processes from end result, I don't actually think that envoys aren't meant to do damage. That said, I do think buffers in general are more valuable when they buff whole party rather than their own attack, so when you can buff and freebie shoot at enemy, I would consider freebie attack as the bonus rather than buffing being the bonus as part of attack.
To reiterate, I perfectly 100% agree that two feats to get long arm proficiency and weapon specialization is just objectively good choice especially in game where feats aren't usually that powerful. Only thing I disagree with is it being "trap choice" and that is because Double Tap is the real trap choice(yeah I'mma gonna do rant on that after this post)
Also really thankful of you breaking down how the hit chance average damage math works, though I haven't fully grasped how it works yet. I appreciate it
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But yeah, double tap: So with two feats(weapon focus and double tap) you get awesome ability of... shooting once with +1 attack bonus and full level to damage and ignoring everything cool weapon related and use twice the ammo.
...Yeah, when you compare that to just getting long arms, losing free hand to use two handed weapon is so much better option it isn't even funny.
Double tap is what makes me sometimes think that small arms are made actively worse just because of operatives alone. Like why the heck double tap must remove all attack/damage buffs and properties in order to do attack that does little bit more damage? It doesn't even deal damage of two shots or anything <_<
Like choosing to use pistols I don't find to be trap choice because you probably just wanted to focus on other things than pure damage and you still keep up with game balance. But double tap "improves" pistols by... Well not really doing anything you couldn't do better by spending two other feats instead and I would argue its actively worse than what you would normally do without it even if you use pistols.
(I don't think it would be even that big change to make double tap actually good. Like if it was something like "okay so as standard action, you attack twice with +1 hit" then it might actually be good enough to compete with longarms and operative trick attacks ;P Though that would have different problem of making it must have to small arm users besides operative I guess)
Anyhoo just to note, witchwarpers are basically just as good as any mystic and technomancer built around mostly casting spells. Only difference is that their main non spell class feature infinite worlds spend spellslots, so its automatically "little bit weaker", but not by much to be honest especially at high levels when spell slots add up to actually have enough of them to not spend them even after full dungeon.
In one respect Infinite Worlds is worse at high levels - it's an SLA, so it can't benefit from Spell Focus feat, and therefore your DCs with Infinite Worlds fall behind your actual spells more and more.
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Hmm that is true, not all of them have save but majority of them do. Still doesn't make them much weaker balance wise unless their spell list is inherently worse.
Like regardless of spell caster class, spells themselves are likely your main thing and everything else is just bonus that can be extremely nice. Best additional spell caster abilities tend to be those that just straight up make spells better or allow casting more of them.
Another issue with 'Infinite worlds' is that it's value is highly dependant on what type of campaign your GM runs.
With the same 10ft only radius from levels 1-20 Infinite worlds is serviceable in an AP or adventure that takes place almost exclusively in small rooms and corridors, but that usefulness drops sharply in any wide open space where people and creatures can freely move around it.
So as long as your Space-opera adventure doesn't involve exploring strange new worlds, dangerous locales or wide, exotic vistas then your main class feature is to spend a spell slot on a functional and flexible small aoe effect with a power level roughly equal to a spell level one lower than the one you just spent.