Is the biohacker just a dip class?


General Discussion


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Despite (or perhaps because of) really loving the concept, there is a lot about this class that I don't like. Despite allegedly being a skilled class, the class itself grants the same Skill points as a soldier or solarion.

The way the class is written relies on nesting inside nesting but without the consistency that nesting normally gets you. It's very easy to miss a gotcha ability because one thing is another thing with this exception for being something else: for example your field of study grants an inhibitor which is a biohack, but because its not a BASIC biohack your Studious biohackers spark of ingenuity won't work on it. Or it will because its not a basic biohack but it follows the rules of a basic biohack.....

The injection weapon proficiency is kind of pointless. You really want to avoid half specialization, but your proficiency doesn't match up with the requirements you need for the feats: you need longarm proficiency for long arm specilization and weapon focus long arms.

Level 1 seems to have everything you need to biohack. You get the -2 penalty to AC Int number of times per day (not improved by your level), you can use your int for 2/3 of the wisdom skills, and you can use your gun to autoselect which dart in a needle gun you'd like to fire, and the class skills you need.

As you level too many of the abilities are Meh. Spark of ingenuity doesn't do much because you either want your field of study biohack on a target or the -2 ac and the rest.. don't matter that much. Medication mastery is pretty good at some levels but at other levels its not that hard to just buy the medication to do the same thing. The level 6 biohacks are all pretty bad: I'd go back and get the level 1 versions first. The healing the class has doesn't scale very well, and is only good to get someone off the ground. Healing serums do the same thing.


Weirdly, I've barely seen anyone play biohacker - dip or otherwise. I've even seen more witchwarpers. As a result I don't feel qualified to say anything definitive about the class other that "It doesn't seem to attract people very much". For me at least, the class being laser focused on injection weapons is a turn off. It means you don't get to enjoy the fun of finding a variety of utility weapons in the field in APs. The class also has very narrow flavor that makes it work for only a few character concepts.

As you point out BNW, it's pretty front-loaded. As it levels up, it gains more variety in what it can accomplish as it picks up additional fields of study, but it doesn't seem to become dramatically more effective at anything. The theorems are also surprisingly sparse and don't really inspire me on a read through.

Have you seen many dip biohackers out and about in your games?


Cellion wrote:


Have you seen many dip biohackers out and about in your games?

I am starting to see a fair number of operatives dipping biohacker : you lose -1 to hit and a few skill points, but gain the ability to take 2 off the opponents AC for everyone including yourself, which is a -4 with their flat footed. Since a lot of operatives are dex then int (for the skill bonuses) with wisdom as a dump stat it improves their perception (for trap spotting) and sense motive quite a bit.

I have a biohacker 6 Sniper soldier 1 myself. (Because i wanted to try the biohacker but have no problem with dips)

I have an int based mystic (reincarnating my first character with a lot more options available these days) who dipped biohacker mostly for the skill boosts, but the debuffing gives them something to do in combat.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference between what the pure biohackers and dipped biohackers actually do when biohacking.Hitting for that -2 AC is so important you use a caustolance. The caustolance can't deliver medicinals without forgoing your damage, so after the -2 AC goes on Its usually more effective to just go damage damage damage.


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Biohacker might be a useful dip, but it's something I am unlikely to ever try myself. I cannot cope with the nature of a couple of its primary class abilities, namely that automatic 20 on identification rolls and the ability to inflict poison-like effects on things that are immune to poison. This is not criticism on those who play the class. It's just something that breaks the class for me. These things just happen, without any explanation "how". Many Starfinder rules are like that. I have no problem pulling an infinite amount of hygiene kits from my gadgeteer operative's utility belt. But a biohacker doing these two things gives me a brainfreeze.

Also the potential mess with auto-id-20 when dealing with shapechangers and disguises, as you have noted elsewhere (don't remember if that was resolved or not).

Somewhat off-topic; this thread might have very few answers because it's in the Starfinder Playtest subforum General Discussion instead of Starfinder General Discussion. It's out of sight to most people, and should perhaps be moved?


Naal wrote:

Biohacker might be a useful dip, but it's something I am unlikely to ever try myself. I cannot cope with the nature of a couple of its primary class abilities, namely that automatic 20 on identification rolls and the ability to inflict poison-like effects on things that are immune to poison. This is not criticism on those who play the class. It's just something that breaks the class for me. These things just happen, without any explanation "how". Many Starfinder rules are like that. I have no problem pulling an infinite amount of hygiene kits from my gadgeteer operative's utility belt. But a biohacker doing these two things gives me a brainfreeze.

Also the potential mess with auto-id-20 when dealing with shapechangers and disguises, as you have noted elsewhere (don't remember if that was resolved or not).

Somewhat off-topic; this thread might have very few answers because it's in the Starfinder Playtest subforum General Discussion instead of Starfinder General Discussion. It's out of sight to most people, and should perhaps be moved?

*facepalm**


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Naal wrote:

I cannot cope with the nature of a couple of its primary class abilities, namely that automatic 20 on identification rolls and the ability to inflict poison-like effects on things that are immune to poison. This is not criticism on those who play the class. It's just something that breaks the class for me. These things just happen, without any explanation "how". Many Starfinder rules are like that. I have no problem pulling an infinite amount of hygiene kits from my gadgeteer operative's utility belt. But a biohacker doing these two things gives me a brainfreeze.

Also the potential mess with auto-id-20 when dealing with shapechangers and disguises, as you have noted elsewhere (don't remember if that was resolved or not).

Man, the automatic 20 on ID rolls bothers me a lot too. Trick attack hand-waving falls into the same category for me, where I recognize that they let you use skills like stealth even totally in the open for playability reasons, but its more than a little immersion breaking.


Cellion wrote:

Man, the automatic 20 on ID rolls bothers me a lot too.

Its not like they can't get the good info off of a skill check anyway.

Quote:
Trick attack hand-waving falls into the same category for me, where I recognize that they let you use skills like stealth even totally in the open for playability reasons, but its more than a little immersion breaking.

For those just picture them using one of the other trick attack skills.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I mean you are describing the result of "Let's be vague in starfinder how players abilities work so they can reflavor them however they want".

But yeah I've seen several biohackers in local scene, though they are recent enough class that all of them that I know are still in 1-4 tier range.


Making a list of what cures what, and it looks like the only problem a biohacker can solve that a little bit of cash can't is confusion.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

IMO, biohacker is in a similar boat as envoy: once you get the "good" theorems by about 6th-8th level, you're basically just applying a minor penalty (instead of a bonus with Get 'Em) while making a single attack each round most of the time. The Galaxy Exploration Manual adds Locomotive Adaptation/Advanced Locomotive Adaptation, but the duration/number of uses limitations makes it only "nice to have."

On the other hand, you can often gain a bit more than you lose with an archetype if you're willing to delay acquisition of theorems a bit.

Horizon Hunters

You might want to try playing the class I have one at level 9 and most of the things you have said are wrong I don't do anything with long arms I use small arms and can do good damage with injection weapons and debuff things hard to help out the rest of the group or buff and can shoot healing without being in danger. You can add your full level to damage a bit later on and also add 1/2 your key mod to damage But that is just the start. They are a great dip for your support types but as a class, they are far greater than you know just by looking at them.


Cool name. The Biohacker in my game (Currently level 6) is quite useful. I also like that the Biohacker can remove radiation from people with the most recent book. Something which seriously hurt my players and has made them a little paranoid about it.
I mean, you use 1 beastie with a radiation Aura and now they all run around with Radiation tags


I love the biohacker. most of what I feel is rough for me is mainly related to feeling like they're theoroms often promote melee but a lot of the class doesn't. They can melee though quite well.

but a lot of the th eoroms, such as removals, or healing, they all require you to stand ne xt to the person. As opposed to tryingto shoot them with it.

I love the class but between 3-say 8 I figure, there is a lot of "well.. I'm not really doing much" going on per turn round. Particularly if you aren't using the EAC injection weapons and you have dex secondary and keep missing.

I think for myself, I'd be less bothered for that level range if there was an injection sniper that did damage. Because then I could have pretty fun dice damage, and a lot of range to play with.
I do find myself wishing I'd built for a Pistol + Shield though actually.

but I love biohacker, depending on the game and party composition though a lot of their team interplay may not come up.


Biohacker with con poison is brutal as all get out.

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