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This afternoon we played with the field test and had a fun time playing. I'm going to quickly post this so that my players can share their thoughts, and I'll also put my thoughts in soon, too.
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I played a Close Combat soldier and while I had a lot of fun, I did feel like the Close Combat style was lacking the support of the other options in the field test. Really exciting to see what the melee weapon options will look like. Want to see what the 2E doshko looks like.
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I myself was a Bombard Soldier using a Stellar Cannon. With the heavy armor, high HP, and ability to reduce enemy attack rolls with the suppressed condition, the party had absolutely no trouble taking hits. Even in a severe encounter, it never really felt like we were in danger. It should be noted, though, that it was a fight against of group of Laser Dogs, so with the party's AOE options it was probably a lot easier to handle than a fight against a higher level boss with this class, which we didn't get to try out today.
Other than that, I found it very nice how free stat allocation felt. With constitution covering armor, carrying capacity, and intimidation, it felt like I was free to invest anywhere else without much issue. You could invest in dexterity for rolling attacks with primary target, strength for using melee weapons, or ignore those for mental stats since you can still blast AOEs using your class DC.
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Grateful to my players for going along with this test with me. All played Soldiers with different fighting styles, different feat choices, and different Free Archetype choices.
First combat was six glitch gremlins against four level 2 PCs spread out across a starship. Ultimately it wasn't that much of a challenge, but let us try a few things out and ask some good clarifying questions about how each ability works.
The second combat was one Tashtari Alpha and three Tashtaris against three level 5 PCs. While technically a severe encounter for the PCs, and while I did land several solid hits across the group, only one PC was ever below half of their HP.
I know that not every SF2 party is going to be multiple soldiers, of course, but I'm glad to see that the "we've got hit points for that" aspect of the Captain Concierge sidebar was totally correct.
I think that the creature abilities were fun, though with so many ranged attackers only the one martial-focused Soldier had to roll against the gremlin's Glitch Aura. Not knowing what "Delete" does is making me really curious. I should have used "Thunderstrike" but in the midst of combat I honestly forgot that it was there as an option, which is on me as a GM. Might have put more of a hurt on them, and the Clumsy effect would have been good to put into play.
We used Foundry VTT to play, thanks to a helpful module that someone had already put into place (GRATEFUL FOR YOUR WORK!!!), which made it easier.
I do think we all found that Suppressed was a great condition to be able to apply, but a little tricky to track based on remembering when it ends (that is, who was the last to apply the condition, and are we all remembering that in the midst of combat).
Overall, really looking forward to this evolution of Starfinder, especially to see what my favorite class (Envoy) looks like, and what future creature designs and ancestry reveals will look like.
Thanks for the window into your design process! We know this isn't a true playtest document, and we had a lot of fun using it.
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If I were to say one thing as a negative, it was that despite taking the Menacing Laughter feat at 2nd level, I never actually had the opportunity to make use of it. The requirements to use it AND for it better than a straight Demoralize before you fire your weapon are pretty strict. You have to:
-Have two or more enemies in your gun’s AOE
-Have two or more enemies become suppressed by failing their save or being hit with Primary Target
-Have these enemies also be within 30 feet of yourself
-Not have already demoralized these enemies with your great intimidation score
I can definitely see situations where you’d use it, but with how things played out, I was a bit disappointed that I was never able to let out a maniacal cackle at the table.
I myself was a Bombard Soldier using a Stellar Cannon. With the heavy armor, high HP, and ability to reduce enemy attack rolls with the suppressed condition, the party had absolutely no trouble taking hits. Even in a severe encounter, it never really felt like we were in danger. It should be noted, though, that it was a fight against of group of Laser Dogs, so with the party's AOE options it was probably a lot easier to handle than a fight against a higher level boss with this class, which we didn't get to try out today.
Those level 3 laser wolves deal also don't deal much damage even for their level, especially if any went into melee and/or were suppressed. With you 2 level higher and in heavy armour that result is to be expected ^^.
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Yeah, I’ll admit that I unintentionally set this up around giving the party a sense of how their actions would work than truly testing the limits of soldier endurance. Would be happy to try that more later, and am curious about what that’s like when it’s not all soldiers, put some squishier folks in there.
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Yeah, I’ll admit that I unintentionally set this up around giving the party a sense of how their actions would work than truly testing the limits of soldier endurance. Would be happy to try that more later, and am curious about what that’s like when it’s not all soldiers, put some squishier folks in there.
Honestly, at this stage testing what you did is most likely even better than testing limits. You can always adjust numbers a little, but getting the basics to work well is hard. It's also better for the players to get a feel I think, I think ^^.
I'm looking forward to seeing more, as I sadly can't do it myself :)
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I was playing the Armor Storm Soldier in this group and had a lot of fun with it. There's a lot of competition for that third action and that's mostly a good thing - the feats that modify area attacks or give a follow up were a nice way to mix things up turn to turn. I did have some trouble justifying getting into position to get full effect from Armor Storm, but some of that comes down to inexperience, party composition, and encounter layout.
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Yeah, I’ll admit that I unintentionally set this up around giving the party a sense of how their actions would work than truly testing the limits of soldier endurance. Would be happy to try that more later, and am curious about what that’s like when it’s not all soldiers, put some squishier folks in there.Honestly, at this stage testing what you did is most likely even better than testing limits. You can always adjust numbers a little, but getting the basics to work well is hard. It's also better for the players to get a feel I think, I think ^^.
I'm looking forward to seeing more, as I sadly can't do it myself :)
Thanks! Appreciate your thoughts, hope we can share more again sometime.