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Full disclosure: this is homebrew. Click this link to view the brew doc.
Why homebrew this early? Well, there's been discussion going on over the field test, its material, and some of its quirks. Already, some common criticisms have emerged around topics like AoE weapons, switching hands, and the Soldier, almost all of which are condensed in a thorough analysis in another thread that I recommend reading, if you haven't done so already. There's nothing necessarily that needs fixing at this stage, given that we're not yet in the playtesting phase, and any amateur attempt to "fix" jank is at serious risk of just leading to more jank, hence the title. With that in mind, the above brew offers an alternative take on several bits in the brew, summarized here:
- Hands: The brew lists out a multi-handed trait for any creature with more total hands than active hands. It is this trait that gives access to the Switch Active Hands action, and also sets the general rule that you can Switch Active Hands instead of Interacting to draw an item. This means the trait can easily map onto any existing Pathfinder feat, and allow Starfinder feats to be written in the same way without needing to add text for multi-handed characters each time. Additionally, Switch Active Hands no longer relies on the Interact action, which means it won't trigger reactions like Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike, and it scales with any number of hands, including odd numbers, without needing to group hands into sets. This combination should make it easy to make any character you like multi-handed and automatically have supporting guidelines.
- Weapons: Area and automatic weapons now use the same Area Fire action, which works completely differently in the brew: rather than targets making a Reflex save against your class DC, you make a different Strike for each target, allowing those weapons to work with weapon proficiency. "Capacity" is changed to "ammo" to avoid confusion with the capacity trait in Pathfinder, and Usage is removed entirely, with gun ammo reserves rebalanced to more accurately reflect their consumption rate.
- Suppressed: The condition is slightly tweaked to be able to scale, and decrements in the same way as the frightened condition in Pathfinder 2e. Under this new model, it would be possible to make an enemy suppressed 2 or even suppressed 3 for even harsher penalties to attack rolls and movement.
- The Soldier: The Soldier receives several changes that keep to the class's intended spirit as a tanky AoE specialist, but try to dig deeper into their flavor and gameplay. Particulars include:
- Base Stats: The Soldier's key attribute is now Strength or Dexterity, rather than Constitution, with choice of subclass determining the attribute. The class's fixed skill proficiency also depends on subclass.
- Arsenal: The Soldier gets an arsenal of weapons they're specialized in, with expert starting proficiency in the arsenal's simple and martial weapons and trained proficiency in the arsenal's advanced weapons. Your arsenal includes automatic weapons, plus extra weapons based on subclass.
- Alternative Fire Modes: The Soldier gets special and improved ways using Area Fire, gained through class features, subclass, and feats. Disciplined Fire is a core feature letting you shoot to avoid friendly fire, and Suppressive Fire lets you shoot to apply the suppressed condition. Actions gained through feats can let you reload while shooting, focus on a primary target, or brace against incoming damage and forced movement, among other options.
- Soldier Divisions: The Soldier's fighting styles are replaced with divisions, which change the class's playstyle far more significantly. Each division defines your key attribute, expands your arsenal with new weapons, gives you a trained skill proficiency, and gives you an entirely new bespoke firing mode. Depending on subclass, you get incentivized to opt into Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma, in addition to the usual Dex/Con/Wis.
- Quick Cover: As a replacement for Fearsome Bulwark at 3rd level, Quick Cover instead lets you take cover as a reaction.
- Feats: Feats are changed to provide alternative fire modes, rather than more power onto the same area attacks, while also letting you opt into a larger arsenal or gain benefits against suppressed targets.
- Soldier Multiclass Archetype: Just for fun, this brew adds a soldier archetype if you want to multiclass into one.
Hopefully this brew is relevant to this forum, and offers a take that can help add to discussion around the field test. Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy!
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Full disclosure: this is homebrew. Click this link to view the brew doc.
Why homebrew this early? Well, there's been discussion going on over the field test, its material, and some of its quirks. Already, some common criticisms have emerged around topics like AoE weapons, switching hands, and the Soldier, almost all of which are condensed in a thorough analysis in another thread that I recommend reading, if you haven't done so already. There's nothing necessarily that needs fixing at this stage, given that we're not yet in the playtesting phase, and any amateur attempt to "fix" jank is at serious risk of just leading to more jank, hence the title. With that in mind, the above brew offers an alternative take on several bits in the brew, summarized here:
...
- Hands: The brew lists out a multi-handed trait for any creature with more total hands than active hands. It is this trait that gives access to the Switch Active Hands action, and also sets the general rule that you can Switch Active Hands instead of Interacting to draw an item. This means the trait can easily map onto any existing Pathfinder feat, and allow Starfinder feats to be written in the same way without needing to add text for multi-handed characters each time. Additionally, Switch Active Hands no longer relies on the Interact action, which means it won't trigger reactions like Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike, and it scales with any number of hands, including odd numbers, without needing to group hands into sets. This combination should make it easy to make any character you like multi-handed and automatically have supporting guidelines.
- Weapons: Area and automatic weapons now use the same Area Fire action, which works completely differently in the brew: rather than targets making a Reflex save against your class DC, you make a different Strike for each
I like the idea of the Suppressed condition scaling. That would allow for more than one soldier to use suppressing fire to pin(slow down) someone down in a crossfire. If the stacking of the attack penalty is too unbalanced then maybe just stak the movement penalty. I like that This would help encourage teamwork,
I liked the
Soldier Division: Not every soldier is trained the same way and this reflects on their behavior in combat, though this might be a bit troublesome because the soldier role might overlap some of your companions, but hey the more options you have the better. It could also work like Cleric Doctrines that change your proficiency depending on the Doctrine you picked
Quick cover I don't think it should be a feature but instead a level 2 or something Feat. This is pretty useful on Sci-fi scenario with many guns.
I like the idea of the Suppressed condition scaling. That would allow for more than one soldier to use suppressing fire to pin(slow down) someone down in a crossfire. If the stacking of the attack penalty is too unbalanced then maybe just stak the movement penalty. I like that This would help encourage teamwork,
Thank you very much! While conditions in 2e don't stack by default, it could certainly be worth having the option to stack certain conditions like suppressed or frightened to support your teammates as you shoot.
Soldier Division: Not every soldier is trained the same way and this reflects on their behavior in combat, though this might be a bit troublesome because the soldier role might overlap some of your companions, but hey the more options you have the better. It could also work like Cleric Doctrines that change your proficiency depending on the Doctrine you picked
Thank you very much for the kind words! I also agree that you could have doctrine-like separate progressions if the Soldier is meant to progress differently based on specialization (you could have one spec that's geared towards legendary armor proficiency and another towards legendary weapon proficiency, for example). Out of curiosity, what overlap would you see occurring between the listed divisions and other characters?
Quick cover I don't think it should be a feature but instead a level 2 or something Feat. This is pretty useful on Sci-fi scenario with many guns.
Quick Cover being such a useful mechanic in a gun-heavy game is precisely the reason why I made it a core class feature and not a feat. If it were a feat, then it would likely become a must-pick for every Soldier, which wouldn't be good for build diversity. As a 3rd-level feature, though, every Soldier will get it, but also nobody multiclassing into the class can get it either, so it can also be allowed to be stronger than your average class feat.
Soldier Division: Not every soldier is trained the same way and this reflects on their behavior in combat, though this might be a bit troublesome because the soldier role might overlap some of your companions, but hey the more options you have the better. It could also work like Cleric Doctrines that change your proficiency depending on the Doctrine you pickedThank you very much for the kind words! I also agree that you could have doctrine-like separate progressions if the Soldier is meant to progress differently based on specialization (you could have one spec that's geared towards legendary armor proficiency and another towards legendary weapon proficiency, for example). Out of curiosity, what overlap would you see occurring between the listed divisions and other characters?
Let's say you had a Soldier in a Marksman training school, it probably would overlap in the role of the Fighter or Operative. Or if the soldier went to the Officer's academy to learn battle tactics and be a field commander, it would probably overlap with the Envoy. Just some speculations, but I think that if you wish for them to have these features you might be better of going on these classes. But perhaps is the same as the war priest, they do have armor and weapon proficiency but they are not Fighters or Paladins.
Quick cover I don't think it should be a feature but instead a level 2 or something Feat. This is pretty useful on Sci-fi scenario with many guns.Quick Cover being such a useful mechanic in a gun-heavy game is precisely the reason why I made it a core class feature and not a feat. If it were a feat, then it would likely become a must-pick for every Soldier, which wouldn't be good for build diversity. As a 3rd-level feature, though, every Soldier will get it, but also nobody multiclassing into the class can get it either, so it can also be allowed to be stronger than your average class feat.
Not exactly a must-pick, I think it depends on your GM playstyle. This feat could also be a General feat for every class to pick in SF.
Let's say you had a Soldier in a Marksman training school, it probably would overlap in the role of the Fighter or Operative. Or if the soldier went to the Officer's academy to learn battle tactics and be a field commander, it would probably overlap with the Envoy. Just some speculations, but I think that if you wish for them to have these features you might be better of going on these classes. But perhaps is the same as the war priest, they do have armor and weapon proficiency but they are not Fighters or Paladins.
This is true, and I tried avoiding niche overlap in the divisions I listed for that same reason. I would probably not implement a sniper division, for example, because that would overlap with the Gunslinger, and the Commander division I implemented hopefully avoids treading on the Envoy's toes as well. Soldier subclasses in general I think should help refine the class's identity, but make sure not to invade another class's niche.
Not exactly a must-pick, I think it depends on your GM playstyle. This feat could also be a General feat for every class to pick in SF.
Indeed, Quick Cover could certainly be a general feat, or at the very least a class feat available to multiple martial classes. Even so, I'd probably still want to make the feat higher-level than 2 or even 4, which would make the Soldier's early access to it exceptional.
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I like the idea of the Suppressed condition scaling. That would allow for more than one soldier to use suppressing fire to pin(slow down) someone down in a crossfire. If the stacking of the attack penalty is too unbalanced then maybe just stak the movement penalty. I like that This would help encourage teamwork,Thank you very much! While conditions in 2e don't stack by default, it could certainly be worth having the option to stack certain conditions like suppressed or frightened to support your teammates as you shoot.
I wasn't thinking of stacking the bonus math, but increasing the condition value like in the scaling example. Suppressed 1 become Suppressed 2.
I wasn't thinking of stacking the bonus math, but increasing the condition value like in the scaling example. Suppressed 1 become Suppressed 2.I like the idea of the Suppressed condition scaling. That would allow for more than one soldier to use suppressing fire to pin(slow down) someone down in a crossfire. If the stacking of the attack penalty is too unbalanced then maybe just stak the movement penalty. I like that This would help encourage teamwork,Thank you very much! While conditions in 2e don't stack by default, it could certainly be worth having the option to stack certain conditions like suppressed or frightened to support your teammates as you shoot.
I think that suppressed 2 is a better thing, and suppressed status should have a maximum value
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With Starfinder leaning more toward ranged combat might be nice if there were ranged tactical advantages like flanking. Like Having two PCs set up suppressing fire, or other combos of ranged attacks in a crossfire would have some extra bonus.
I was recently flanked by 3 zombies, or as my character liked to put it had 3 zombies flanked. But no one else in the party took advantage of it. Only one other PC closed to melee range and other than our healer every one just stayed at the doorway shooting. The fight seems to be going our way, but got me wondering I ranged combat had some team-oriented tactics available that might be more interesting.
The -5 movement penalty from suppressive fire would not have been enough to make a difference because the two sides started so close together even with a -5 move penalty, the distance would have been closed in one move action. Maybe on a crit hit, suppressing fire might also push the target back 5 feet? That would have likely changed the dynamic of the battle more.
More ranged tactical options are for sure needed. And preferably not all locked behind class abilities/fears. That will just see them not be used. Base options that are useful to use so that everyone will. Then class/feat stuff to make good options great and a character's focus.
Even a wizard with a pistol should be able to set up flanking or some other maneuver in the above example. Probably not the best action for them, but saves spell and has tactical advantages in certain situations. The maneuver soldier though, only bothers to use their weapon for pure damage after the fight is already won.