So... one thing that you can bet about SF2 is that one way or another, a bunch of classes are going to wind up more interesting and/or flavorful than their SF1 versions. That's a good thing. It means that some of the classes might wind up pretty heavily remixed, though... which might mean that some niches go unfilled. If the niche is unimportant or unfun, that's not a problem. If it's core to someone's fantasy, though... that's an issue. So let's talk for a bit about what concepts are core to the Starfinder fantasy. I'll start out with the obvious ones, and I'd love to have people fill in behind me with the ones that are not obvious to an outsider.
- Tank. There has to be a way to be the big, beefy character who's hard to kill, and who at the same time has some way of convincing the enemy to target them rather than their friends. Ideally, there would be a way to do this for both mostly-ranged and mostly-melee tank, though ranged is probably the more important of the two.
- Weapon-based damage. There needs to be a way to build a character whose primary Thing is picking up a weapon, choosing an opponent, and making their HP drop. Again, ideally it would be possible to build this kind of character as either melee or ranged, though it doesn't necessarily need to be the same class. This character should not be one for whom stealth is inherently part of the build.
- The Operative still needs to be a thing. There needs to be a way to play someone who has "really skilled" as their primary schtick, there needs to be a way to play a stealth-based character, there needs to be a way to play an infiltration specialist, there needs to be a way to play a sniper, there needs to be a way to play assassin-types who aren't necessarily snipers, and clustering them all as the same class just makes way too much sense to do anything else.
- There needs to be a way to be a character who's awesome because they're really good at tech, without need to dip into spells. Whether it's a small swarm of robots or a set of overalls full of gadgets or whatever, the trope of the genius engineer who does Awesome Genius Engineer Things is too valuable to lose.
- There needs to be at least one class that's relatively simple to pick up and understand and play, and have it work out fine when you do.
That's what I got. What else is there?
Please don't make the operative suck. It is my go to character and I love my Dragonkin operative.
I'm pretty confident that none of the classes are going to suck. Over the course of working on the system in PF2, they've gotten pretty good at making classes not suck. The trick is going to be making sure they don't miss anything important.
Like... this whole thing came out of the discussion around the Soldier field test. To me, the soldier field test looked really interesting. At its core, it's a con-based ranged defender with a focus on area effect. It's a cool concept, and taken in a vacuum, calling that role "soldier" is reasonable. The issue comes in that it displaces the old "soldier", which was your ranged/melee weapon-based primary damage-dealer. So now if you don't have some other class that lets you do that thing, you just don't get to have a "I shoot them with guns and then they fall down", the class.
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Despite having several music-related scenarios and a one-shot where the PCs are band, Starfinder doesn't have a music/performance themed class like the Bard. We know the Envoy is getting better at combat. It might not be worth having a full band oriented class, but an Archetype might be a good way to do it. A background would be good to have to but not as the only option. If it was then you have to know you're going to be in a band at character creation. An archetype would let you start a band at higher levels.
I'm curious to see how the Bard works for Starfinder bands. Not sure if bards being solo performers would matter or not.
Please don't make the operative suck. It is my go to character and I love my Dragonkin operative.
Sorry you were too powerful in this edition its back to pathfinder 1 rogue* levels of power for you. MYHHAHAAHAHAHAHAH
The pendulum must swing!
*not even unchained! **
** muahahahahaahah
Could we finally have paizo psionics? With an actual power point pool, not that PF1 psychic magic that was just another version of the same vancian casting system?
It would fit so well.
Most of the Paizo staff have stated they didn’t care for that casting system buuut it has been awhile and what with new faces so that sentiment could have changed since.
That said I don’t see them making up a whole new casting system, P2 Psychic would be the closest.
(Could/would they even wanna use Psionics due to the OGL shenanigans?)
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A mechanic with actual mechanics to let them mechanic.
Having a + to engineering is nice and all, but anyone can do that. (I kinda feel bad when My mystic has a higher bonus...)
Anyone can open a door or disable the trap. There should be some wacky inventor who's thing is ripping the trap apart and turning it into a weapon
Don't just shut down the security system turn it on the defenders. They can use their knowledge of robotics to do extra damage to robots, and then reprogram the robot onto the partys side in the middle of combat.
"You need a skills class" but one of the main reasons for doing a new edition is "setting a DC so that it can challenge an Operative makes it impossible for anyone else" probably means that the Operative is going to be less unreasonable than it was previously.
The "best at skills" thing will probably just be the same "skill boost and feat at every level" thing the rogue and investigator have. Figuring out how much of a combat suite the chassis has is going to be interesting though.
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A mechanic with actual mechanics to let them mechanic.
Having a + to engineering is nice and all, but anyone can do that. (I kinda feel bad when My mystic has a higher bonus...)
Anyone can open a door or disable the trap. There should be some wacky inventor who's thing is ripping the trap apart and turning it into a weapon
Don't just shut down the security system turn it on the defenders. They can use their knowledge of robotics to do extra damage to robots, and then reprogram the robot onto the partys side in the middle of combat.
In Star Trek, Scotty wasn't a must-have person on an away team in case they needed a door opened. "Scotty, can you get the door? Captain, I'm given her all I can she won't budge another inch."
I'm trying to think of examples in sci-fi movies of a mechanic doing mechanic things during non-starship combat. R2D2 comes to mind, astromechs are basically combat mechanics, altho R2D2 isen't the average astromech and could also be considered an operative in many ways.
So the current mechanic + drone option we have seems very fitting. To deal with my mystic has a higher bonus, let mechanics use their drones to aid their checks.
Repurposing traps and robots is a great idea too. But for that to work encounters need to be designed to include them. You can't feel like a mechanic if you don't have something to mechanic on. So the issue might be both a question of encounter and class design.
Also don't make one of their mechanics the ability to hack stuff from farther away. That always fell flat to me, considering we live in a time when someone can steal your secrets from across the planet.
This was their one very useful thing.
If you have a giant killer roobot* with a nuclear missle arm, you don't hook that thing up to the internet where it can be hacked. Same with your plans for world domination. My degree is in trees and even I know you airgap that.
Not that. I have plans. for world domination....dammit here we go again...
Thats a reasonable limitation that with an individual who can bypass it being extraordinary and provides a large, non numeric, unique feature. As design goes its really really good.
*it was a typo. Now its a thing. Interdimensional pouch for more missiles or the weirdest swallow whole...
I'm trying to think of examples in sci-fi movies of a mechanic doing mechanic things during non-starship combat.
Ironman macguyvering a suit out of parts for a missile. Well anything macguyver does. Rocket racoon taking parts of quills ship to make something that blows of planets, futzing with the local anti gravity and escaping, or thats a nice one trick pony power you got there it would be a shame if i a made a counter out of groots handheld gaming system.
Tech in the bad batch had a few moments, he took over a robot in a training exercise that was supposed to kill them, since their training weapons couldn't hurt the robots.
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I'm trying to think of examples in sci-fi movies of a mechanic doing mechanic things during non-starship combat.
Ironman macguyvering a suit out of parts for a missile. Well anything macguyver does. Rocket racoon taking parts of quills ship to make something that blows of planets, futzing with the local anti gravity and escaping, or thats a nice one trick pony power you got there it would be a shame if i a made a counter out of groots handheld gaming system.
Tech in the bad batch had a few moments, he took over a robot in a training exercise that was supposed to kill them, since their training weapons couldn't hurt the robots.
Ironman macguyvering a suit: That's, I made myself a suit of power armor that flies. That could be done by replacing a mechanics drone with a custom suit of armor inventor style.
The Rocker Racoon example is that during regular or ship combat or both? In a lot of sfi-fi movies, both are going on at one time. But Rocket is a good example I'll have to rewatch the movies.
Tech from the bad batch feels more like a combat engineer/hacker operative. But what he did in that scene could have been fitting for a Starfinder mechanic.
So there seems to be 4 options for a mechanic to mechanic in combat.
1: Make something in downtime and use it in combat (armor).
2: Macguyver is something on the spot. (needs things to macguyver)
3: Mess with robots to make them do what you want
4: Work with your drone.
For options 2 and 3 encounter design might be equally or more important than the class design. To make the mechanic more interesting and feel like it's mechanicing There needs to be something more interesting than a door to open and a computer to hack. I might even be good in the GM section of some book to have a bunch of tech items commonly found in rooms that could be Macguyver by a mechanic, with ideas on how they could be used. Tech Revolutions galaxy of tech section has some info that might help but it's more oriented to how a character might use or misuse it.
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The Solarian exists to be a fair chunk of the faux-Jedi fantasy, right? Cool sci-fi powers and a magic sword?
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The Solarian exists to be a fair chunk of the faux-Jedi fantasy, right? Cool sci-fi powers and a magic sword?
In another post, I created general grievous by stacking 5 SROs, each played by another player to make it legal, the first being a mechanic, and the rest Solarians. The first player plays the head, body, and legs as a mechanic controlling other drones, the rest of the players each play a separate arm using a solar sword.
So yes Solarian can be Jedi-ish. I need to read up on the non-deity-based faiths in Starfinder to see if any fit well with the Solarian.
I do wish the Solarians had noncombat uses for the motes. Being that they are a charasima-based class I'd love to be able to make a musical instrument from a mote.
The Solarian exists to be a fair chunk of the faux-Jedi fantasy, right? Cool sci-fi powers and a magic sword?
This is probably the best depiction of a jedi knight in Starfinder I have seen (3rd party class 'warning'): Mystic Space Knight
In another post, I created general grievous by stacking 5 SROs, each played by another player to make it legal,
he could qualify as large. Stack 8 SRO's with scurry into 4 squares.
The Rocker Racoon example is that during regular or ship combat or both?
He threatened to use it in ship to ship combat with the ravagers. Dax Wound up Using it in hand to hand on Xandar to blast Ronan