This works particularly well if weapons' DCs are set by their level, which I expect will end up being the case.Do you mean that you expect weapons like this to have static DCs? That seems incredibly unlikely to me. This aspect is one of the most heavily criticized in PF2 already and that is when the DC isn't even for something you'll use all the time. I'm imagining the outrage when the DC constrains your entire combat effectiveness... yeah, no way.
I'm kind of divided in this aspect.
Having a DC set based on the weapon level makes sense because you can have a wizard, Soldier, and a fighter firing the same AOE weapon, the most important part ain't who's shooting but what they are shooting with. The blast is decided by the weapon. This argument also can be refuted with the saying this is reflected in the weapon damage.I also think that there is no problem in calculating the weapon DC by Proficiency+DEX or STR (like wizard's spellcasting, just need to make clear that you should never add tracking into this math)
I also don't see a point in a soldier being really good at using Automatic fire and being completely useless when firing the weapon without Automatic. Why I say this is, Soldiers will probably rely on CON for HP and AOE attacks, STR for increasing bulk. They probably will invest in the last case in WIS/INT or DEX stats. Their AC and REF will probably come from Armor (that will have a DEX 0), so I don't see much point in having DEX.
But of course this will be part of build thinking, the way soldiers are, they are kind of awkward. If we go for DEX or STR, they would need Feats for both Heavy and lighter armors (to be durable that is)
Managing Creative Director (Starfinder)
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Yeah, just popping in here with a few takes...
-Class DC was a space that allowed us to have good scaling for all classes and have control over who could be good with area weapons. Michael Sayre talked about it on the PF2 Subreddit, but having kineticists being skilled with Area Weapons actually makes a lot of sense because they're all about control, which translates well to the use of the weapons.
-While nothing is out of the realm of possibility at the moment, legendary DC for soldiers using area weapons isn't in place right now, because soldiers have a lot of other things going on for them, especially in the defensive department. Now, just because currently a kineticist can have a better DC, doesn't mean that a kineticist is going to have all the class-related perks that make a soldier exceptionally awesome with these weapons. So there's a balance here and we're still working on it. (Heck, we haven't even gotten to what multi-class archetypes might do to this).
-When we're looking at assumed class roles, it will also be important to see the stable of classes and what they're each capable of. I think once we get some of other classes in play, that will help us establish a baseline for assumptions and how a Starfinder party can play. Note, that we're going with some different assumptions for the how the game plays in SF2 (guns are a serious thing here) and I can't wait to explore it more in coming blog posts and updates.
-Overall, love the discussion here! Keep it up.
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If a soldier's Class DC and weapon proficiency keep pace with each other, the Soldier will have a numerical advantage of +1 for "using area attacks" from levels 1-4, and levels 10-14, and again at level 20: so about half the time (assuming you start with a +4 in Con and a +3 in whichever stat you prefer hitting people with.)
So I wonder if we can't split the difference here by occasionally giving the Soldier a +1 to hit with Primary Target or something.
The other issue is that you're going to get up to a +3 to hit with targeting/magic, which probably isn't going to also apply to your class DC. Normally the "you have a lower number attacking non-AC defenses" thing is balanced by "you get to pick which defense you attack, and every monster has a low save" but area weapons are always reflex, and you'd expect the average Starfinder enemy to have a higher DexMod than the average Pathfinder enemy (since everybody in this game is capable of fighting people who have ranged attacks.) The other issue is that "AC" is almost never anybody's lowest defense, so your fallback here isn't great.
This works particularly well if weapons' DCs are set by their level, which I expect will end up being the case.Do you mean that you expect weapons like this to have static DCs? That seems incredibly unlikely to me. This aspect is one of the most heavily criticized in PF2 already and that is when the DC isn't even for something you'll use all the time. I'm imagining the outrage when the DC constrains your entire combat effectiveness... yeah, no way.It is, at least, less of an issue with a weapon. If your item's DC is set by its level, and your weapon increases in level every time it gets an improvement to its technologically distinct runes, then its DC will be increasing more frequently than other items will.
I'll definitely grant that is still only six times over the weapon's lifespan though, which is going to lead to a couple levels where you're off where you'd want to be by a point or two, so yeah my idea has some work.
I'd argue it be much more of an issue, simply because that's the thing you're using to have an effect on the board most of the time. And if it strictly follows the PF2 rune progression, you are going to use the same weapon from lvl 4 to level 10. That's not being off by a point or two, that's going from DC 18 at level to DC 27 at level 10 (according to the GMG). That is literally unplayable by like level 6, when an on-level enemy with a moderate Reflex modifier will need a 4 (!) to succeed.
Not only that, you are also completely divorcing the item from your character. With a fixed DC, it literally doesn't matter how good your character is supposed to be at using it. The only thing you can do then to manipulate "proficiency" is to allow a class to manipulate the fixed DC... I think you can see the problem.
All in all, essentially everything speaks against this idea.
How’s this for a thought experiment: suppose your typical weapon made Strikes on their AoE attacks or otherwise scaled with weapon proficiency, but then had a d4 damage die, a 3-action cost to their area attack, reload 3, and only enough ammo to fire 1 shot before reloading. Would this weapon be a problem on Fighters? Would it even be desirable to a Fighter? This is obviously an extreme example, but if there is an intent to avoid AoE weapons being too good on the Fighter, a single-target damage specialist, surely there must be a threshold past which AoE weapons wouldn’t be that great, if it isn’t already the case?
Conversely, if the intent is for the Soldier to be the best user of these weapons, I imagine there’s plenty more ways to reinforce that as needed: even with the above heavily undertuned weapon, if the Soldier could bump its damage up, like the Gunslinger with firearms, and boosted its capacity, while reducing its reload and area attack action cost, past a certain number of buffs the Soldier would have pretty good AoE via those weapons. I may be wrong on this, but it looks like both guns and the Soldier have enough balancing levers that one could strike a balance between both bits of content while still having AoE weapons use weapon proficiency and not class DC.
How’s this for a thought experiment: suppose your typical weapon made Strikes on their AoE attacks or otherwise scaled with weapon proficiency, but then had a d4 damage die, a 3-action cost to their area attack, reload 3, and only enough ammo to fire 1 shot before reloading. Would this weapon be a problem on Fighters? Would it even be desirable to a Fighter? This is obviously an extreme example, but if there is an intent to avoid AoE weapons being too good on the Fighter, a single-target damage specialist, surely there must be a threshold past which AoE weapons wouldn’t be that great, if it isn’t already the case?
As it currently stands, aoe weapons don't look like they are worth it long-term, unless you specialize in them. For some characters it's the pure bulk and hands they occupy, but for the Fighter it's that existing options are just better. At lower levels it's kind of a toss-up, but once you hit master in a weapon group at level 5, a typical bow fighter (or the SF equivalent) just puts out all the damage without having to reposition to keep targets in your aoe.
The extreme example you are describing would be very undesirable for a Fighter. For 6 actions (Ready Reload doesn't work as the aoe takes your whole turn), you'd have to hit like 4 or 5 people minimum to make that worth it. I'd also be really ineffective in general, as you would be spreading the damage so much that it becomes actively detrimental to your team. After all, that pitiful damage isn't likely to drop an enemy into a lower "hit to kill" zone for your mates, so it's effectively irrelevant. A "normal" Fighter with 6 actions usually fully drops one to two enemies.
Conversely, if the intent is for the Soldier to be the best user of these weapons, I imagine there’s plenty more ways to reinforce that as needed: even with the above heavily undertuned weapon, if the Soldier could bump its damage up, like the Gunslinger with firearms, and boosted its capacity, while reducing its reload and area attack action cost, past a certain number of buffs the Soldier would have pretty good AoE via those weapons. I may be wrong on this, but it looks like both guns and the Soldier have enough balancing levers that one could strike a balance between both bits of content while still having AoE weapons use weapon proficiency and not class DC.
PF2 has essentially made that choice and has run into serious problems doing so. Making a weapon useless unless it's in the hands of a certain character creates the necessity for said character to spend a lot of it's class features to get out of that pit. Only then can it improve on the norm, which is the actual point of a class. That's what the Gunslinger has done with guns and it shows. It has 6 subclasses, only 1 of which is actually halfway competitive and you have a whole weapon category that practically no-one else has a reason to even look at.
Specialisation is far better achieved with just making the class better at that thing, so if people want to do this thing they prefer the corresponding class. And I'd argue the Soldier already does that. If Primary Target becomes an additional attack on top of your aoe, then it absolutely does that. Sure, the Kineticist will become legendary in its Class DC - at level 19. But you still have Suppressing Fire, Primary Target, probably a ton of strong feats and can actually use them to Strike (if you are going automatic or have feats for it).
So I'd argue this current version is actually in a pretty good place already.
I get feeling that soldiers at very least need to get legendary class DC at some point even if they don't get legendary weapon proficiency eventually. Would be kinda pity though if none of starfinder classes get legendary weapon proficiency even at the 19th level.
I think that they should have something legendary, be it weapon or armor.
Capping everything as master for them should be really sad.
I get feeling that soldiers at very least need to get legendary class DC at some point even if they don't get legendary weapon proficiency eventually. Would be kinda pity though if none of starfinder classes get legendary weapon proficiency even at the 19th level.I think that they should have something legendary, be it weapon or armor.
Capping everything as master for them should be really sad.
I'd vote for armour with champion progression. Just using the champion's progression as a template in general would work quite well. Some tweaks here and there as the Champion gets quite a bit of stuff later on, but it would make for a good foundation.
The alternative would be legendary in Fort saves. But I don't really want the Soldier to go full ham on CON, even with the key stat. I'd prefer a more well-rounded approach.
The legendary in Class DC would only come in at level 19 anyways, which gets a hard pass from me. The "I'm great at aoe weapons" part is much better represented in other ways. Ones you will actually get to experience frequently. I'll still say just copy the Magus' "special" Spellstrike idea and plop extra goodies onto using the aoe activities. Use those 4 degrees of success!
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-While nothing is out of the realm of possibility at the moment, legendary DC for soldiers using area weapons isn't in place right now, because soldiers have a lot of other things going on for them, especially in the defensive department. Now, just because currently a kineticist can have a better DC, doesn't mean that a kineticist is going to have all the class-related perks that make a soldier exceptionally awesome with these weapons. So there's a balance here and we're still working on it. (Heck, we haven't even gotten to what multi-class archetypes might do to this).
I’m slightly surprised to hear this, as I thought I that would address many of the points brought up, I’m willing to wait until next year and see what the full soldier looks like before being too concerned, though I do share the concern about being less than useful against high reflex enemies and class dc lagging behind weapon proficiency. Seems. Like y’all are on that though.
One other “class role” that I haven’t seen addressed is the other thing the fighter does. It is the class that just works without adding complication, that you can give to a newer player. Spell caster classes pretty much don’t qualify by default, and the envoy is likely to not be this class due to being support/tactics focused (I could very well be wrong here). I’m curious if the solider will be that class, though the weakness to reflex saves is discouraging.
One other “class role” that I haven’t seen addressed is the other thing the fighter does. It is the class that just works without adding complication, that you can give to a newer player. Spell caster classes pretty much don’t qualify by default, and the envoy is likely to not be this class due to being support/tactics focused (I could very well be wrong here). I’m curious if the solider will be that class, though the weakness to reflex saves is discouraging.
One of the many reasons why I'm advocating for a (basic) attack roll based system ^^. Because for the Soldier's role, what you described very much seems to be the intent and probably will be what you get once you get rid of that crippling problem.
It is a class with a simple base concept that adds value to the team pretty much by default. Your game plan is simple: stand vaguely in front of the squishies, blast and everything will be fine. The mix of high defense, decent damage and the blanket suppressing everything means a high skill/effectiveness floor. There isn't much you can really do "wrong".The only real complexity comes from weapon choice and getting a ton of active abilities. The latter don't come in easy weapon-specific buckets like the Fighter, which might be a problem for a new player. It's a bit early to say, but sprinkling in more passive feats for a "choose your complexity" approach is worth a thought.
(Sorry about the back-to-back posts, but this didn't really fit the previous one.)
Continuing from my post in the Follow-up Changes thread, I actually noticed that the potential for friction with spell DC is even greater than I thought. Assuming that the tracking trait follows the fundamental rune progression of +1/+2/+3 at levels 2/10/16, as was I think confirmed (?), then your class DC wouldn't "just" exceed the spell DC of casters by 2 at levels 10-14. It would also do so by +1 from levels 2-6. Classes like the Kineticist would even be at +3 from levels 16-18. And so on, depending on your specific class.
This very much feels like area weapon users would step on the casters' toes quite a bit, even if that's not strictly true.
I mean all this means is spell casters can use AoE weapons, how funny.~
My take:
Area attacks made from area weapons/automatic fire would use the weapon proficiency of the user + Con modifier (instead of dex/str) + tracking of the weapon. This would represent the wielder using their toughness to stabilize the heavy weapon or heavy recoil of these weapons.
The Soldier gets expert and fighter-level progression on area weapons, including automatic fire.
In the end, this would make a fighter (Who's con will be between +3 and +5 at best) have a DC 46 to his area attacks (+36 modifier)
A Soldier would have a DC 47 (+37 modifier), or the equivalent to a fighter's single-target, but only when using area weapons, but a +35 when using other weapons (like a normal martial).
This would mimic the Gunslinger's mastery of guns/crossbows, but instead with area damage. It would also mean the Soldier is hands down the best at using area weapons, because their key modifier (Con) is also their attack with them.
Yeah I think you're right regarding fighter-level proficiency.
But I do like the Con mod + weapon proficiency so far.
When it comes to the Stellar Cannon, non-martial-trained characters will have a harder time using it properly, since it is now based on weapon proficiency.
That does mean fighters will have a leg up on the DC due to their high proficiency, but also they don't have full Con like the Soldier does.
And of course, they're missing out on key abilities like Primary Target.
developing that mod I tested out using weapon proficiency + con, and I found that the fighter level proficiency on area weapons was kinda busted at early levels (moreso, I think, than legendary at higher levels would be). Enemies were failing a LOT, and even critically failing a fair amount. That said, fighters are in a different game, so how important that is is up for debate.
I'd say that is fine in regards to the Fighter. When converting it to SF2, you could just give the strong recommendation to exclude area weapons from the higher proficiency.
Any possible legendary weapon progression native to SF2 would probably have a limited selection like the Gunslinger anyway. If not, you should exclude area weapons just like on the Fighter.
In terms of being fun to play, weapon proficiency + CON would be massively preferable. Moderate saves are the equivalent to high AC, so the norm for a martial. But enemies having a good Reflex save is common, so far more than any other martial, you will often effectively target the extreme AC and beyond. It's much like using troops against a DEX-heavy party on higher levels - you're not going to do anything. Having your progression delayed by 2 or even more levels on top of that is going to feel even worse, so I'd be great if we could avoid that.
We played a one-shot using Weapon Proficiency + Con, felt good. Had numerous players with area weapons (custom-built ones using the examples as guides), and they had an absolute blast, especially when they could get a 2-3 enemies in the area of effect.
One was the Soldier and they really enjoyed everything. Then I gave the alchemist a custom-built flamethrower and they loved it. Using Con as the reflex save, it helped make Con more useful - the alchemist was using 18 int, 16 con which you don't normally see.
At level 1, a DC of 16-17 was manageable for the enemies. Obviously low-reflex ones got wrecked, but the more nimble ones were able to avoid it unless they rolled low.
I'm building a level 5 one-shot with some different perimeters to feel slightly higher level play, also different kinds of area weapons.
Honestly, I like the general shape of the system they're laying down already. I don't think it needs to be changed. Area effects target Ref? Great! That saves us from having to come up with tortured explanations of why they're targeting something else, and it also means that the character can be balanced against "targets one save" rather than "targets any of multiple saves".
I also rather like the idea that the Operative is the one that gets legendary weapon proficiency, while the Soldier gets legendary class DC, an it makes them good at different things.
There's just a few weirdnesses that I see.
- The range/melee split, for Soldier martials: give us area effect melee weapons that work off class DC.
- Focus Fire: Honestly a bit weird, and feels like it should maybe be a class path thing?
- No difference between simple/martial/advanced on area effect: possibly limit the weapon types to which class DC can be applied by class and feat expenditure. Like, to start with, everyone gets simple and soldier gets martial. Maybe some classes don't get any by default? Take feats to unlock higher tiers.
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The current system has a lot of weird interactions and issues that mean only a Soldier really has much reason to pick up one of these weapons. And even a Soldier will feel the problems very clearly. Because right now we basically have an attack/save hybrid system that combines the worst aspects of both, almost without receiving any benefits in return.
From attacks/targeting, you receive MAP and concealed/hidden interactions. But you don't get the easy penalties you can apply to enemy AC, particularly off-guard. Something that is good for you, but really weird on the receiving end, is that abilities that should ostensibly work against your attack (e.g. Nimble Dodge) can trigger but don't do anything because they only increase AC. Actually, even the suppressed condition the Soldier inflicts does nothing to enemy area weapons, which is kind of funny XD
From targeting saves, you get the - for the attacker - much more brutal save progression. Even just a moderate save is equal to the same level's high AC (the usual AC for frontline monsters) and high reflex saves are common (about a third of monsters, heavily featured at lower levels), meaning you are targeting the equivalent of extreme AC several times more often than someone targeting AC. And since reducing saves is much harder than reducing AC, you are largely stuck with that. The only time you ever aren't targeting high AC or higher is when the enemy has a low Reflex save, which is often reserved for Large or bigger creatures, meaning the aoe aspect of your weapon is largely negated. What you don't get from targeting saves is the ability to target multiple ones, the only thing that makes casters kind of work.
From the DC thing, you also get the needlessly delayed progression. Tracking increasing class DC only helps somewhat. And we don't have any interaction with weapon proficiency ofc.
All in all, we have the main thing that causes so many complaints about PF2 casters and have taken away even just the possibility of dealing with it on your own. So far, any area weapons user will be at the almost complete mercy of the GM's monster selection and the group caster's willingness to help you out. I'm all for encouraging teamwork, but that is a bit much.
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If we stay with this system, it would be worth looking into how to make it work better for the Soldier at least.
One idea I had was to resolve the Primary Target attack roll before the saves (something I'd like to see anyway). A hit or even a crit would denote a direct hit, increasing your class DC against only that target by 1 (hit) or 2 (crit). I would usually say put a penalty on the enemy save, but that would conflict too much with existing penalties. Just pumping the numbers a bit isn't exactly elegant, but it's something.
But again, I'm sure the team are very aware of all of this and are already working on several possible solutions. This is just me freaking out because I can't help but analyze everything to death ^^
You do still have the "half damage on successful save" thing, right? I'm not misremembering that? That certainly helps.
Other than that, I feel like any necessary math fixes can come in the weapons themselves. Like, the idea that area effect weapons are ponderous and unwieldy and relatively easy to avoid the brunt of but slam home like a truck when they do fully light you up seems reasonable to me as an overall theme, if that's what it takes.
You do still have the "half damage on successful save" thing, right? I'm not misremembering that? That certainly helps.
That's pretty important, I should have mentioned that XD. Yes, you do get half damage on saves, but that will also be what you will regularly see for quite a while. Especially at lower levels (1 to about 5) it feels like everyone and their mother has a high Reflex save, so you are looking at an about 45% success chance against the usual enemies (PL-1). If everything goes right (Reflex is only the moderate save), it's actually not the worst, as you are looking at about 60% success chance. That is before cover is applied, though quite a few heavy weapons don't really care about that.
So the "enemies succeed all the time" perception will probably be unchanged. The overall numbers should be pretty decent by pure volume (for the Soldier), this is more "feels bad" than "is bad" (for the Soldier). Except on the levels where your proficiency lags behind, those are going to be really painful for everyone. Let's hope the norm fro class DC upgrades is 7/17 in SF2, not 9/17 or even 9/19. Suffering for 4 entire levels is going to be bad enough, I don't think I could handle 6 or 8.
Regular weapon users start the "bad scenario" (which is technically their "normal" with high AC) at about 60% success chance and can reasonably get it up to 70-75% with some light teamwork. Their "good scenario" (moderate AC) is 65-80%. Cover can often reduce that, though.
Regular weapon users have an advantage on that front and that is compounded by the fact that they will often attack twice. While that is complete nonsense, what I see usually happening is that those two attacks will be perceived as two separate instances of success/failure (with a failure on the second being given little weight), compared to the save only being seen as one. So when you hit both Strikes, people perceive that as being more successful than when two enemies fail their save.
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Yeah, I think that's going to have to be a matter of philosophy. The Soldier tosses out a blanket of fire, keeps the enemy's heads down a bit, and chips off some damage. They're suppression and attrition rather than focused damage dealing, and when an enemy happens to take it full in the face, that's a bit of luck you can feel good about. You're an area effect specialist, not a crit machine. The Operative is the one who's got bullets with people's names on them. Your job is to produce that hundred thousand some odd labeled "occupant".
Having an appropriate bit in the fiction and/or class description might help on that one.
Mostly, I'm hoping that there's a clear way to allow for Envoy-buffing of Soldiers. The idea that the Soldier, of all classes, can't usefully benefit from having an effective commander? That would feel wrong. Ideally, in my perfect little world, a party that consisted of an Envoy and three Soldiers would be kind of terrifying on the battlefield. Like, they'd probably suffer from certain issues when it came to out-of-combat and utility stuff, but in the fight itself, that should be one of the classic combos.
Or, you know, don't have that, but change the name to "Heavy". That works too. Just, if you're going to leave them as "Soldier", then it ought to really work when you turn them into a fire team, you know?
That's also why I hope the Bombard's stuff gets folded into the class itself, because still suppressing enemies when they succeed their save is pretty much what suppressive fire is. It's pretty silly that they have to be "hit" to be suppressed baseline. Otherwise it's going to be 90% Bombards, because it is the best and (arguably) most fun option.