| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
I'm GMing a SF campaign and one of my players is a solarian. I am planning on showing him the Enhanced Solarian from Starfinder Enhanced at tomorrow night's session, but I am a little confused about the new Attunement Surge ability.
While you have 2 attunement points in a stellar mode, you can expend 2 attunement points on your turn without spending an action to gain two effects until the beginning of your next turn. First, you gain benefits from that mode's stellar revelations as though you were fully attuned, rather than attuned...
Does this mean that a solarian using the enhanced rules now only needs 2 points to use Black Hole or Supernova now, instead of 3? What about other (full-fledged) zenith revelations?
Or is it not giving early access to use these zenith and zenith-lite revelations at 2 attunement points, but simply saying that when you use your other (non-zenith) revelations with Attunement Surge, you gain the extra perk that being fully attuned grants you with those revelations, such as the higher DR with Dark Matter or the doubled Athletics bonus on Gravity Boost?
I just want to be clear before my player asks me.
The latter. Just your stellar revelations, rather than zenith ones.
Agree with Milo with one clarification. It's extremely rare that being FULLY attuned actually grants you anything. The language is almost always "if you are attuned OR fully attuned" then you get the bonus duration or increased effect. This is specifically the case with Dark Matter and Gravity Boost, FULL attunement does nothing for you that regular attunement didn't.
Attunement Surge seems mostly useful in round 3 when you don't want to zenith. You can instead take a minor buff and keep your existing revelations going because you don't lose all your attunement points. Or you can use it in round 2, but you'll go to 0 points and everything will stop or lose the extra bonuses. Maybe if you plan to switch attunement between photon/graviton in round 3 anyway.
The latter. Just your stellar revelations, rather than zenith ones.
I'm not sure I agree.
First, black hole and supernova are explicitly stellar revelations. From the text of the Stellar Revelations class ability (emphasis mine):
At 1st level, you automatically learn the black hole and supernova stellar revelations.
Both abilities "function as a zenith revelation for the purposes of abilities that reference them," — which Attunement Surge does not.
A plain reading of the rules suggests that black hole and supernova are stellar revelations, and remain so when used with Attunement Rush.
Second, it's not clear to me that the term "stellar revelations" necessarily excludes zenith revelations.
From the description of the Zenith Revelations class ability (emphasis mine):
At 9th level and again at 17th level, you gain two powerful stellar revelations. Choose two revelations from the zenith revelations list: one graviton revelation and one photon revelation. The list of zenith revelations begins on page 107.
Zenith revelations are powerful stellar revelations that require you to be fully attuned in a stellar mode. After using a zenith revelation, your stellar mode immediately becomes unattuned.
I've always interpreted this to mean that when one is talking about stellar revelations, one is also talking about zenith revelations, unless one adds specific language to exclude them. If there is any rules text that suggests that zenith and stellar are mutually exclusive categories, rather than the former being a subset of the latter, I'm not aware of it.
A plain reading of the rules suggests that black hole and supernova are stellar revelations, and remain so when used with AttunementRushSurge.
Meant "Surge", sorry.
Yeah, I agree that it’s unclear, surprisingly so for Paizo.
We had the same question tonight.
Any clarification on the topic?
|
Zenith Revelations are Stellar Revelation, although there are a few special rules. However i don't think you should be able to use them with Attunement Surge. If they could, most solarians would effectively be fully attuned at 2 points, and ignore disproportionate revelations.
I think the word "benefits" in Attunement Surge is refering to the additional power a revelation has when fully attuned, but not whether or not you can activate them. For non-Zenith Revelations, you can take the actions to activate them even if you are not fully attuned. However Zenith Revelations are unique in that they can only be activated while fully attuned.
|
This has come up in a game I'm GMing as well, so I'm hitting the FAQ button. Suggest others do the same (although it's unclear if 1e is going to get any more 'secondary' support, like FAQ rules clarifications...)
I agree with Milo and Xenocrat, though - I think the first part of Attunement Surge only applies to the the smaller 'rider' benefits some revelations grant, and it is not meant to imply Solarians can use Zenith "fully attuned" revelations every 2 turns, rather than every 3. My reasoning is twofold: first, changing Zenith Revelations to be useable with only 2 Attunement rather than 3 Attunement would be a big deal - like, that really changes how Solarians work. If that had been the intent, I think the wording would have been very clear on that: like, "you are now fully attuned at 2 instead of 3" or something similarly very clear and obvious. Compare to the other Enhanced classes, that got very powerful upgrades, but are pretty clear on how their upgrades work: envoys' Inspiring Combo, and new witchwarpers' Infinite Worlds.
Second point is: if the intent is that you can zenith with only 2 Attunement Points, then that sort of renders the following new Enhanced lvl 3 ability, Combat Meditation, useless. Combat Meditation gets you a new way to get to 3 AP sooner; only, why would they make that ability if you didn't need to get to 3 AP anymore?
I think the real "meat" of Attunement Surge is the second part, which gives you a bonus based on which Mode you're in. The first part is just a little side benefit, and isn't supposed to let you Zenith with 2 AP.
(Although, on the other hand, as Xenocrat points out, there's really only two non-Zenith revelations that have different effects at Fully Attuned, rather than regular vanilla Attuned: Impossible Gravity and Binary Shield System. If that's the case, then that first part of Attunement Surge is really niche.)
Seemed pretty clear to me and my other local society players that the Attunement Surge just allows you to be considered to be fully attuned.
While you have 2 attunement points in a stellar mode, you can expend 2 attunement points on your turn without spending an action to gain two effects until the beginning of your next turn. First, you gain benefits from that mode’s stellar revelations as though you were fully attuned, rather than attuned. Second, you gain a benefit based on which mode you are attuned to.
The real benefit to me from this when I played the enhanced Solarian was that you get to stay "attuned" through the entire round instead of becoming immediately "unattuned" after using a zenith revelation normally. The abrupt unattuned state really messes with your action economy when you are trying to keep revelations like Plasma Sheath and Dark Matter going through combat.