So for this one, I don't actually have anything to offer on my own. I know little enough about the Solarian that I cannot currently offer useful insights.
At the same time...? Well, it's early days yet, and from what I do know about the Solarian, it seems like a really malleable concept. You have light powers and you have gravity powers and you can Do Awesome Things with them. We know that basically all of the classes are going to be nudged around at least a bit, and it seems like the Solarian is a bit more nudgeable than most. So... what's the Solarian deal, really? What are the totally awesome things that they should make sure to keep in some form? What are the not so awesome things that would be better done some other way?
Again, this is mostly a thoughts/ideas/analysis thread. The primary purpose is to provide potentially useful idea grist to the dev team.
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I honestly want it on the Kineticist chassis. That class delivers *exactly* the kind of play experience I’d enjoy on a Solarion, it just needs to be whacked into a sun-and-holes shape.
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Solarian in SF1 didn't really hit the mark I felt it was going for. To many people it felt like it was trying to be an off brand Jedi, a lightly armored combatant with a built in option for a "laser sword" along with some mysticism and special powers.
What it actually showed up in play as was a low-skill bruiser who picked up heavy armor and a shield as soon as possible. There's also the armor solarian which you immediately forgot actually had something special about their armor, and they played with regular weapons or dipped for guns just like everyone else.
The balance between graviton and photon powers was for the most part a flop because it was mathematically superior to go all-photon, load up your self buffs, and only use your zenith revelation if you suspect the combat was about to end.
All that being said, it was still a quite fun class and I enjoyed playing it quite a bit!
So, I'd like to see a whole bunch of tweaks, but especially letting me play more like a Jedi like I imagined at the start. I want a laser sword, unarmored, and no shield, and I want more out of combat utility.
I'd definitely like to see a similar design philosophy to Kineticist in terms of options for specialization or broadening power sets. That said, I definitely want it to feel like it as an identity outside of 'Kineticist in Space'. I kind of think the Weapon/Flare/Armor are all pretty integral to the Solarian identity and strictly replacing them with a cosmic version of elemental blast would be a mistake.
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Based on the new iconic, it looks like they're moving away from the monastic aesthetics and leaning into the charisma focus. They're a cyborg cat with sunnies & jacket, who fights via finger guns.
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I like the idea of building them on the Kineticist Chasssis as well.
Instead of "overflow" with the Zenith, each "Revelation" (impulse) would have a Zenith option: "If the last revelation you used was Photon/Graviton (Same time as this Revelation) then (thing that enhances this revelation)"
That way you could have that sense of balance, basically requiring you to use a different kind of revelation each turn to keep your Solarion aura active, but you can then throw the balance to do a powerful Zenith thing, which would end your aura.
And of course there would be effects for your aura as long as it's active that switches based on which Revelation you just used, and there would be options that let you build for a more Nova Zenith build, or a sustained Aura build.
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I always thought the whole "powered by a dichotomy" bit of Solarian lore was interesting, and I hope it gets explored more. The electrical attunement option from Tech Rev was really cool, and I think it'd be neat to see more Dichotomies presented as options for Solarians, out of the gate. Lean into classical mechanics with like, just spitballing, but some sort of Vibration or Displacement Attunement, with opposed modes of Motion that does sonic damage and grants blindsense, and Friction that does fire damage, makes you harder to move/reposition/control, or whatever. Or go more offbeat / esoteric (which is, IMO, when Starfinder is at its best) and make a Solarian powered by the opposition of cultural traditionalism vs cultural innovation, that provides bonuses to, I dunno, say, Saving Throws for traditionalists and increased movement speed / haste effects for innovators?
Echoing what others have said, though, I hope that there's a more meaningful trade between Modes, whatever they are. And that slightly concerns me, since from what I've heard, there are very few big, meaningful, bonuses, in the Paizo Three Action System - it's hard to get a +2 to something, by most accounts, and a lot of character options boil down to "a single non-stacking +1 to some check" which is, frankly, boring. So if all that switching between modes does is, just making up examples, grant +1 Fire damage, or +1 AC vs Bullrush - that's both uninteresting, and hardly a choice, if no one's ever going to choose a small bonus against a very situational attack.
Mechanics aside, a Solarian that embodies a given dichotomy's entirety, and ping-pongs between the two extremes without favouring either, is more interesting to me than one that sticks to one end of the spectrum. If the dichotomy is between "this mode for DPS, this mode for Tanking" then you don't really have any reason to switch between the two: you'll stick to whichever one is more in line with your role in the party.
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The mechanics including the +/-10 to crit mechanic makes those +1's much more impactful. And they do stack, provided they're of different types of bonuses, you can stack an Item bonus + Status Bonus + Circumstance bonus, and inflict penalties on the enemy to make them all add up.
The ONLY reason I'm not for the various dichotmies (which are really cool and creative by the way) is the class name "Solarion" indicating it should be about a star.
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The ONLY reason I'm not for the various dichotmies (which are really cool and creative by the way) is the class name "Solarion" indicating it should be about a star.
It is. It just doesn't stop being about stars just because they die.
The ONLY reason I'm not for the various dichotmies (which are really cool and creative by the way) is the class name "Solarion" indicating it should be about a star.It is. It just doesn't stop being about stars just because they die.
Sure! ...but "cultural traditionalism" vs "cultural innovation" isn't.
Managing Creative Director (Starfinder)
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We'll be showing more of Solarian in the future, but the current approach is fairly different than the 1E approach. We've had some playtest data with it, and the class is pretty potent and capable of doing a lot with its abilities. There's a bit of tracking that the class currently has, but nothing that we've found to be overbearing (in fact it seemed the player in our last playtest had a lot of fun with it).
Curious to keep hearing folks thoughts, but just know that we're keeping a lot of the core conceptual states of the class in place, but are exploring some pretty radically different ways of managing the class compared to what we've seen with other classes.
I hope the solarian doesn't get expert with attacks at level 1. I hope none of the classes start with expert at level 1 in their attacks. Giving the fighter expert at level 1 was a massive mistake, as it basically is counter-balanced by giving them less impactful feats, as is what was said in the gunslinger playtest feedback. It also has broken the community somewhat in what they think balance is, and created this weird cult of "Why play anything except fighter because fighter is the most accurate/damages the most" that I don't want to see in Starfinder.
What I do hope is that the Solarion has like, a massively expanded version of the Mindblade archetype. Where it just gets to manifest its weapons, armor, and just not have to worry about whether the enemy is a significant threat or not.
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I hope the solarian doesn't get expert with attacks at level 1. I hope none of the classes start with expert at level 1 in their attacks. Giving the fighter expert at level 1 was a massive mistake, as it basically is counter-balanced by giving them less impactful feats, as is what was said in the gunslinger playtest feedback. It also has broken the community somewhat in what they think balance is, and created this weird cult of "Why play anything except fighter because fighter is the most accurate/damages the most" that I don't want to see in Starfinder.
I don't think there's any risk of the Solarian getting the Fighter's defining mechanical trait.
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agreed the Expert with attacks at level one is not likely to be brought over. They haven't mentioned anything about critical hits being important to the Solarion (unless someone else has heard that) so they wouldn't be a good reason to give that to them. Fire arms use crits as big upgrade to damage, hence why Gunslingers got that on their firearms, and fighters have that enhanced accuracy as a feature.
I would imagine Solarion is going to have a different central mechanics.