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To lay this out, randomly picking Mechanized.
Start of Round, up to 4 EP you have
1 EP: You gain a +5-foot enhancement bonus to one speed of your
choice.
2 EP: Your adaptive strike gains a critical hit effect based on its
damage type: arc (electricity), bindAR (cold), bleed (piercing or slashing),
burn (fire), corrode (acid), or knockdown (bludgeoning). Critical hit
effects that deal damage deal 1d6 damage, increasing to 1d10 at 7th
level, 2d10 at 13th level, and 3d10 at 19th level.
3 EP: The enhancement bonus to speed increases to +10 feet.
from the Universal Instinct(?) and from your Drawback have
While you have at least 1 EP, the first time you take either
type of damage you chose for your instinct above since the end of your
last turn, you take additional damage equal to half your evolutionist
level plus the number of EP you have.
If you have 3 or more EP, you become increasingly robotic. You’re
treated as both a construct and your creature type—whichever type
allows an ability to affect you for abilities that only affect one type,
and whichever is worse for abilities that affect both types. Such effects
continue to affect you even if you have fewer than 3 EP later in the
effect’s duration. In addition, you can’t gain morale bonuses, and you
take a penalty equal to half your EP total (rounded up) to Charisma based skill checks except Intimidate
and just gained
4 EP: If you’re wearing light armor or no armor, you gain a +1
enhancement bonus to your AC. If you’re wearing heavy armor or
powered armor, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your EAC, though
this can’t increase your EAC above your KAC.
and then you spend 2 EP by this option
2 EP: As a swift action, you can spend 2 EP to gain either a climb
speed equal to half your land speed or a swim speed equal to half your
land speed. This effect lasts 3 rounds. When you take a full action to
charge, run, or withdraw, you can activate this ability without taking an
action, rather than as a swift action.
Immediately losing:
3 EP: The enhancement bonus to speed increases to +10 feet.
(which interferes with the ability you just activated)
If you have 3 or more EP, you become increasingly robotic. You’re
treated as both a construct and your creature type—whichever type
allows an ability to affect you for abilities that only affect one type,
and whichever is worse for abilities that affect both types. Such effects
continue to affect you even if you have fewer than 3 EP later in the
effect’s duration. In addition, you can’t gain morale bonuses, and you
take a penalty equal to half your EP total (rounded up) to Charisma based skill checks except Intimidate
4 EP: If you’re wearing light armor or no armor, you gain a +1
enhancement bonus to your AC. If you’re wearing heavy armor or
powered armor, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your EAC, though
this can’t increase your EAC above your KAC.
(the ability you just gained at the start of the turn that didn't come into play at all, meaning you had to take note of this ability when gaining and adjusted your stats only for it to not matter at all since you immediately lost it and had to revert your stats).
And you have to do this EVERY turn.
This? This is not fun.
You picked only a single thing that changed then ignored everything else, proving my point that most people will ignore it (especially the negatives) or forget it.
No. As I noted I took it and more than just the change in speed.
While you make it clear in your post you are counting the AC increase as a calculation despite it being in effect for effectively no time, I ignored it for that reason. For example, I don't try to take in account for the bonus an envoy's get 'em when my turn is going to be throwing an arcing surge. I see a lot of these bonuses in a similar fashion. I might be getting them, but I don't need to do any additional thought to apply them.
I did see a few issues of complexity in the one session I have run for evolutionists so far, those issues do not seem map to your post copy/pasting the playtest evolutionist's abilities. There weren't a lot of issues recalling which abilities were gained or lost during the game.
The ebb and flow of EP still seemed fun to me, along with how abilities changed. Had issues with it, but I can deal with those elsewhere. I look forward to getting more experience with it to see if I enjoy it for itself or just because it is new and different.
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To lay this out, randomly picking Mechanized.
Start of Round, up to 4 EP you have
Redonculous amounts of calculations.
Why on *earth* would you bother with all that???
I gain 4 EP.
My ep is now 4
I move. Since my EP is now 4, I get 10 extra feet.
If some one attacks me *and* hits my AC *exactly* I check my EP, see that it gives me a +1 and blow a raspberry.
I spend 2 EP.my EP is now 2.
I make an attack. If I roll a 20, I check my EP and see that I have a crit effect.
You are making 10 times the amount of work you have to do for *absolutely* no reason.
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When your character is off target, do you recalculate all your to hit bonuses (ranged, melee, thrown? And then calculate them back again when you stop being off target?
Do you recalculate both your ACs when something makes you flatfooted? And then calculate them back?
Why would you do all that for this?
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While you make it clear in your post you are counting the AC increase as a calculation despite it being in effect for effectively no time, I ignored it for that reason.Time is irrelevant, cognitive load is. "Oh I don't count those changes" is not the winning persuasion you think it is.
For example, I don't try to take in account for the bonus an envoy's get 'em when my turn is going to be throwing an arcing surge. I see a lot of these bonuses in a similar fashion. I might be getting them, but I don't need to do any additional thought to apply them.
That's an assumption you are having, that further proves my point. "I'll just ignore them unless they come up and then I'll totally remember all the +s and-s" does not speak highly of the class nor this portrayal of it, especially among other players and the GM where the combat will be slowed down as you rebuild your character on your turn every round or worse argue to retcon actions cause you forgot something that changed at a specific point, which you will.
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To lay this out, randomly picking Mechanized.
Start of Round, up to 4 EP you have
Redonculous amounts of calculations.
Why on *earth* would you bother with all that???
I gain 4 EP.
My ep is now 4
I move. Since my EP is now 4, I get 10 extra feet.
If some one attacks me *and* hits my AC *exactly* I check my EP, see that it gives me a +1 and blow a raspberry.
I spend 2 EP.my EP is now 2.
I make an attack. If I roll a 20, I check my EP and see that I have a crit effect.
You are making 10 times the amount of work you have to do for *absolutely* no reason.
Again, "This class is awesome cause I ignore the bookkeeping until it's relevant and actually remember to do so" is not the shining endorsement you think it is.
Your example actually sounds like more work than mine, since you have to doublecheck for mistakes and also angle for retcons when you get forget one thing rather than having it down as rote. Your example only works out better if you have perfect memory and can quickly adjudicate on a moment's notice. That's not a scenario in live play for most people, it's wishy theorycrafting in a vacuum.
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When your character is off target, do you recalculate all your to hit bonuses (ranged, melee, thrown? And then calculate them back again when you stop being off target?
Do you recalculate both your ACs when something makes you flatfooted? And then calculate them back?
Why would you do all that for this?
Uh, yeah? Why wouldn't I keep track of what penalties my character is suffering. I'd infuriate my GM otherwise if I conveniently ignored stuff like being flatfooted.
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That's literally how most people play all of their classes... at least for temporary bonuses.Again, "This class is awesome cause I ignore the bookkeeping until it's relevant and actually remember to do so" is not the shining endorsement you think it is.
So why does the Evo need another pile of temporary bonuses for people to forget? Why is that a good thing?
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If the balance is struck such that the passive abilities matter, then cognitive load is undeniably higher than for most other characters. Every time you spend EP you have to weigh it against what you lose, and you could be losing things from a variety of different mental silos.
If you're not weighing the options each time, then you're essentially rolling the dice and seeing where the EP effects land, which amounts to randomly gaining and losing various minor benefits.
I can't see how that's desirable.
Now look at it from the GM's perspective. Is it fun to have a player randomly bouncing around by 1 point of AC? Have them constantly raise their hands and check their EP before allowing you to proceed with an attack? Systems should be evaluated by the effects when they fail as well. In this case I can easily imagine players forgetting all these little things round by round, and eventually entering a state of Schrodinger's EP Total where, unless I'm policing them, they always have +/- 1 EP depending on what benefits them.
At least with Vanguards their abilities are build-spend, and are more noticeable than a pile of little pluses and minuses.
Because a constant changing state of being is a lot of fun to play withAnd the current mechanical implementation is not required to achieve that.
A lot of us can handle that amount of cognitive load without issue.
Going to disagree there.
Secondly just because someone can handle said cognitive load doesn’t mean they want to or like to waste the thought space on it.
People enjoy wild magic sorcerers in DnD, this is similar in that respectThis is in absolutely no way similar to rolling on a d100 chart.
it gives more analytical gamers a chance to flex that analytical play style.
Dealing with an increased cognitive load isn’t a play style.
This reminds me of arguments surrounding Sacred Geometry.
A lot of us like the play that comes with it
Who’s us?
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You keep asking "why not just play a soldier" but maybe that is the answer for you. Just play your Soldier... and let the people who don't want to be a Soldier have their fun too, instead of just demanding that everything be more like a Soldier.
It's the same as my friend who plays Champions instead of Battlemasters in 5e because he doesn't like resource management. And that's fine.
Now obviously there are some balance considerations that might need tweaking, but that's a different beast than fundamentally breaking down the class' unique mechanics and concepts.
While you make it clear in your post you are counting the AC increase as a calculation despite it being in effect for effectively no time, I ignored it for that reason.Time is irrelevant, cognitive load is. "Oh I don't count those changes" is not the winning persuasion you think it is.For example, I don't try to take in account for the bonus an envoy's get 'em when my turn is going to be throwing an arcing surge. I see a lot of these bonuses in a similar fashion. I might be getting them, but I don't need to do any additional thought to apply them.That's an assumption you are having, that further proves my point. "I'll just ignore them unless they come up and then I'll totally remember all the +s and-s" does not speak highly of the class nor this portrayal of it, especially among other players and the GM where the combat will be slowed down as you rebuild your character on your turn every round or worse argue to retcon actions cause you forgot something that changed at a specific point, which you will.
I haven't been trying to convince you the class is something you enjoy.
I'm trying to saying that the class, as it appears now, is not as complex as you describe after I read it and now after one game. I do have issues, but this thread has not felt like a good place to place those comments.
Through this though you have been saying that there are things that I didn't think about, when I did think about them; told me that I will slow down the game because I will be constantly rebuilding the class, when that did not slow down the game; and that I will argue to recon actions because of forgetting things in game, to which I'll admit I have issues as a player but this is not a think I do.
I make no claims to what you or anyone else feels about the class, but you seem to have a clear understanding of how I interact with this class that I would only assume from my closest friends of years. If it wasn't completely entirely inaccurate.
If you are doing these things with this class, that is completely fair and reasonable criticism of the class. But you are saying things on how I'm playing with the class without any knowledge of me, at least I don't think I ever played with you. Since your claims about me or so far off base, it is making your other arguments less persuasive to myself at very least.
From having played the class once, I think that there's a nugget of a great concept in here, but we need to figure out if the general public is good with the point management system they presented, and see if players are okay with very limited out-of-combat options.
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From having played the class once, I think that there's a nugget of a great concept in here, but we need to figure out if the general public is good with the point management system they presented, and see if players are okay with very limited out-of-combat options.
Though I dislike the EP system as written right now, it's that second bit that's my biggest problem with the class. Right now, you're only an evolutionist after you roll initiative. Otherwise you're just some dude with a weird natural attack. Even solarians and vanguards have some minor things they can do with their class features outside combat.
Even outside skills and abilities it would be nice to have... just some way of gaining/spending some reserve EP when you encounter a trap so you can use your defensive powers outside combat.
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You keep asking "why not just play a soldier" but maybe that is the answer for you. Just play your Soldier... and let the people who don't want to be a Soldier have their fun too, instead of just demanding that everything be more like a Soldier.
It's the same as my friend who plays Champions instead of Battlemasters in 5e because he doesn't like resource management. And that's fine.
Now obviously there are some balance considerations that might need tweaking, but that's a different beast than fundamentally breaking down the class' unique mechanics and concepts.
I'd say that it should both be more like the soldier but also am fine/neutral with the current level of complexity. Right now the class is very much just 'a character with a solar weapon, but with low BAB & Health of a Caster, the low Skills of a Int-Based class or Soldier'.
It has the worst parts of a martial and the worst parts of a caster, while only having the strength of a solar weapon.... that actual solarions or even a mystic can use already while having better stats or far more utility.
I'm trying to saying that the class, as it appears now, is not as complex as you describe after I read it and now after one game.Not complex, needlessly complex.
Through this though you have been saying that there are things that I didn't think about, when I did think about them; told me that I will slow down the game because I will be constantly rebuilding the class, when that did not slow down the game; and that I will argue to recon actions because of forgetting things in game, to which I'll admit I have issues as a player but this is not a think I do.
Congratulations, for a single session you were the exception.
The exception, not the norm. People will forget stuff while trying to juggle this class’s abilities, or just simply not care to think about them until it comes up at which point you’re sure you’d be absolutely reminded of them and remember to take them into account, as you’ve already admitted here.
I make no claims to what you or anyone else feels about the class, but you seem to have a clear understanding of how I interact with this class that I would only assume from my closest friends of years. If it wasn't completely entirely inaccurate.I’m talking about what I feel are fairly reliable predictions on how this class will play out in general, or responding specifically to what you’ve said. Juggling a cognitive load like this is bound to cause issues, and you’ve stated you intentionally don’t keep track of something till it’s relevant.
If you are doing these things with this class, that is completely fair and reasonable criticism of the class. But you are saying things on how I'm playing with the class without any knowledge of me, at least I don't think I ever played with you. Since your claims about me or so far off base, it is making your other arguments less persuasive to myself at very least.
While you make it clear in your post you are counting the AC increase as a calculation despite it being in effect for effectively no time, I ignored it for that reason. For example, I don't try to take in account for the bonus an envoy's get 'em when my turn is going to be throwing an arcing surge. I see a lot of these bonuses in a similar fashion. I might be getting them, but I don't need to do any additional thought to apply them.
Your own words. That’s what I have to go off of.
You keep asking "why not just play a soldier" but maybe that is the answer for you. Just play your Soldier... and let the people who don't want to be a Soldier have their fun too, instead of just demanding that everything be more like a Soldier.
It's the same as my friend who plays Champions instead of Battlemasters in 5e because he doesn't like resource management. And that's fine.
Now obviously there are some balance considerations that might need tweaking, but that's a different beast than fundamentally breaking down the class' unique mechanics and concepts.
The Soldier is the standard for a combat class in Starfinder as I see it, if you’re in every way worse than the standard and only a combat class, that’s a big issue.
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Rysky does have a point.
Evolutionist is thrown out as a combat class. So far, it doesn't hold up against the combat classes. Since the classes 'pure focus' is combat, as in it has no real ability out of combat, it warrants comparison to the Soldier.
Until half way through its life, it will either hit less or gain benefits. Without those benefits, their durability is lacking. Their combat capacity is worse then a support class (Simple and light armour). It gains a free weapon. When it does gain benefits it receives a flaw, either taking more damage, loss of actions or loss of healing. As a class, I don't see a huge flexibility to help counter act the overall lacking elements. Oh, they do save money...
I want a class that’s fun to play.
*nods*
Right now though it seems like it doesn’t appeal to that many people.
Further, I have no interest in Tehcnomancers or Mystics, casters don’t appeal to me in the slightest, but I like them. I don’t like Evolutionist as is, which doubly stings since I love the flavor.
I want to WANT to play this class, monsterish-sliding-fighter sounds awesome. Then we see what we’d actually be playing.
Of course everyone loves the concept, the flavor is great, I can count on my hand though the number of people who seem to like the teeter totter with the EP.
You can have the shifting and the mutations without the teeter totter.
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A teeter totter system could work. The Solarian seemed to have some kind of intention of teeter tottering between Graviton and Photon modes, but in practice the build up is WAY too long and spreading out your abilities between the two too detrimental. What this sytem has going for it is that you can teeter totter MUCH more frequently, but the mechanics fall flat for me.
I think it needs refinement.
I'd prefer to pick out two distinct elements that are on either side of the proverbial teeter totter. Say, defense and offense, or defense and mobility, or offense and health. Having defense and speed and damage on one side, and basic melee competence on the other just feels wrong to me.
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They are literally one and the same. The mechanical representation of rapid unstable mutation (which IS the flavor of this class) is constant changing of abilities and statistics within a single combat.
You can have the shifting and the mutations without the teeter totter.
And grabbing somewhat more permanent mutations that can change every time you take a ten minute rest doesn't fulfill that flavor?
I’m very confused by your definition of “flavor”.
Giving Evolutionist something to do outside of combat and more utility is a good thing, especially if it makes the class overall more refined.
And we can give them the Drawbacks more room to grow or give not-buffs if more instability is what you crave.
no, not at all. 10 minute rests happen out of combat, its not some form of instability in action. You could add it in addition to the in combat shifting, but alone, it doesn't fulfill that flavor.And grabbing somewhat more permanent mutations that can change every time you take a ten minute rest doesn't fulfill that flavor?They are literally one and the same. The mechanical representation of rapid unstable mutation (which IS the flavor of this class) is constant changing of abilities and statistics within a single combat.
You can have the shifting and the mutations without the teeter totter.
While the idea of a reverse EP pool is gaining favor in my head over scrapping the teeter totter all together, I'm actually thinking either additional adaptations that are more permanent, or an additional track of mutations either tied the the niche, or a separate pool at the rate of magic hacks.
As is the evolutionist doesn't actually evolve. They change a bunch in combat, then reset to their baseline. They're more of a... adaptationist? Reactionist?
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I'd rather see EP be a resource you spend to gain abilities each combat, thus changing your form each fight in order to adapt.
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I found another nasty issue with EP.
I played in a scenario with a martial non-combat encounter where we had to make attack rolls and use abilities to impress an NPC. Because it was technically not a combat encounter, I couldn't gain any EP to spend on abilities or boost my base attack bonus.
This was pretty darn frustrating.