Just as the title says, I'm happy that the devs are getting to make classes in the 2e engine that's had nearly 5 years to test the waters and stretch the limits while maintaining a balanced session of play. The little I've seen seems novel compared to the Pathfinder classes. Soldier being an AOE damage/debuff tank, mystic taking the lay on hands heal/buff approach to a ranged network, Solarian taking the resourceless spell economy of the kineticist and adding a phase cycling loop, envoy BRINGING THE WARLORD FANTASY TO THE 3 ACTION ECONOMY, and operative....aiming and having powerful ranged shots (I really need to watch that playtest stream to see if other operative mechanics have been teased). Witchwarper sounds cool from the little blurb we got about it's aura shenanigans, but we'll have to wait to see some gameplay/ teasers. It all looks to play very different from the pathfinder core. Taking these classes coupled with an entire fantasy game worth of archetypes is gonna make for a fun summer when my table and I finally start playtesting
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(I really need to watch that playtest stream to see if other operative mechanics have been teased).
In the recent SF2e playtest that Jenny GM'd for Cosmic Crit (pt 1, pt 2) (I think this tidbit was in pt 2? The entire playthrough was great, though, def worth a listen) Jenny teased that different flavours of Operatives can do different things to get extra damage. It sounds similar in some ways to the 1e Trick Attack, only absent a Skill Check - you just take the action, and get bonus damage and/or bonus effects on your attack. The Operative in that playtest, ya boi Iseph, is apparently built as a sniper, and so they took the Aim action to do extra damage, but other Operatives may have other actions that aren't Aim - confuse or bluster the foe more like, say, a feint, or use the terrain to your advantage or make some kind of 'terrain attack,' and so on.
(I really need to watch that playtest stream to see if other operative mechanics have been teased).In the recent SF2e playtest that Jenny GM'd for Cosmic Crit (pt 1, pt 2) (I think this tidbit was in pt 2? The entire playthrough was great, though, def worth a listen) Jenny teased that different flavours of Operatives can do different things to get extra damage. It sounds similar in some ways to the 1e Trick Attack, only absent a Skill Check - you just take the action, and get bonus damage and/or bonus effects on your attack. The Operative in that playtest, ya boi Iseph, is apparently built as a sniper, and so they took the Aim action to do extra damage, but other Operatives may have other actions that aren't Aim - confuse or bluster the foe more like, say, a feint, or use the terrain to your advantage or make some kind of 'terrain attack,' and so on.
Nice! If any of the subclasses allow for melee like the field test soldier I'll be immensely satisfied. I'm imagining an infiltrator type operative that makes a performance or feint check (depending on whether or not there's active combat) to get in close and shiv someone
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(I really need to watch that playtest stream to see if other operative mechanics have been teased).In the recent SF2e playtest that Jenny GM'd for Cosmic Crit (pt 1, pt 2) (I think this tidbit was in pt 2? The entire playthrough was great, though, def worth a listen) Jenny teased that different flavours of Operatives can do different things to get extra damage. It sounds similar in some ways to the 1e Trick Attack, only absent a Skill Check - you just take the action, and get bonus damage and/or bonus effects on your attack. The Operative in that playtest, ya boi Iseph, is apparently built as a sniper, and so they took the Aim action to do extra damage, but other Operatives may have other actions that aren't Aim - confuse or bluster the foe more like, say, a feint, or use the terrain to your advantage or make some kind of 'terrain attack,' and so on.
I like the idea of trick attack or some ability like it being an action. My operative has never succeeded at making and trick attack and hitting during the same attack. I switched to doing full attacks and started finally hit something.
Although hitting more will ruin the fun I have had missing constantly and find amusing ways to justify missing, or a lot of the time now my character just assumes he hits even when he hasn't, and leads to overconfident banter and intimidation checks.
(I really need to watch that playtest stream to see if other operative mechanics have been teased).In the recent SF2e playtest that Jenny GM'd for Cosmic Crit (pt 1, pt 2) (I think this tidbit was in pt 2? The entire playthrough was great, though, def worth a listen) Jenny teased that different flavours of Operatives can do different things to get extra damage. It sounds similar in some ways to the 1e Trick Attack, only absent a Skill Check - you just take the action, and get bonus damage and/or bonus effects on your attack. The Operative in that playtest, ya boi Iseph, is apparently built as a sniper, and so they took the Aim action to do extra damage, but other Operatives may have other actions that aren't Aim - confuse or bluster the foe more like, say, a feint, or use the terrain to your advantage or make some kind of 'terrain attack,' and so on.
Oh sick, I didn't even think of that! From what it sounded like a few months ago, all Operatives had Aim and it generally did the same thing. So I thought it would be neat if the different subclasses would modify Aim a bit to give it a distinct flavour.
But each just straight up having a (sort of) different mechanic is way cooler.
It sounds similar in some ways to the 1e Trick Attack, only absent a Skill Check - you just take the action, and get bonus damage and/or bonus effects on your attack.
Which will make Swashbuckler horribly jealous if they don't get tweaked a bit in Player Core 2...
It sounds similar in some ways to the 1e Trick Attack, only absent a Skill Check - you just take the action, and get bonus damage and/or bonus effects on your attack.Which will make Swashbuckler horribly jealous if they don't get tweaked a bit in Player Core 2...
Well, if the class doesn't get any changes, then that is fully deserved :P. Though I'm not sure this particular part will change, given that "you do a cool thing, you get cool stuff" is baked into the class fantasy.
But hey, at least the Swash and similar classes - even the more successful ones (e.g. Ranger) - are a perfect example for why I'm personally happy about the plentiful experience SF2 devs can draw on. It dramatically increases the chance of getting classes that are both fun and good ^^
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Well, if the class doesn't get any changes, then that is fully deserved :P.
Agreed. I'm not suggesting that Operative should be nerf'd because Swashbuckler exists in a troublesome spot.
And PC2 hasn't been released yet, so I can still hold out hope for some improvements to Panache.
I'm curious what operative feats will look like. Debuffs on ranged shots? Bonuses to preferred styles of assassination (stealth, deception, athletics)? A gilly suit feat chain? They and witchwarpers definitely hold the most questions for me
Even with the operatives curse messing with the dice, it should happen fairly regularly. Especially if you have a good stat and a species bonus in a non dex skill for the delicious +4
And once you hit level 7 you take 10 on the check and shouldn't miss. ever. If something is too high of a cr to take 10 with either you have a really slow skill modifier or its cr is so high you should be using your operative speed boost, stage left.
It sounds similar in some ways to the 1e Trick Attack, only absent a Skill Check - you just take the action, and get bonus damage and/or bonus effects on your attack.Which will make Swashbuckler horribly jealous if they don't get tweaked a bit in Player Core 2...Well, if the class doesn't get any changes, then that is fully deserved :P. Though I'm not sure this particular part will change, given that "you do a cool thing, you get cool stuff" is baked into the class fantasy.
But hey, at least the Swash and similar classes - even the more successful ones (e.g. Ranger) - are a perfect example for why I'm personally happy about the plentiful experience SF2 devs can draw on. It dramatically increases the chance of getting classes that are both fun and good ^^
I wouldn't be surprised if Swashbuckler got a small buff of some kind, but emphasis on small, it's already in a pretty good place.
Well, if the class doesn't get any changes, then that is fully deserved :P.Agreed. I'm not suggesting that Operative should be nerf'd because Swashbuckler exists in a troublesome spot.
And PC2 hasn't been released yet, so I can still hold out hope for some improvements to Panache.
You and me both. Every class deserves to be as fun and good as it could be!
And don't worry, I didn't assume you were saying that ^^
I'm curious what operative feats will look like. Debuffs on ranged shots? Bonuses to preferred styles of assassination (stealth, deception, athletics)? A gilly suit feat chain? They and witchwarpers definitely hold the most questions for me
We've seen Peek (or something) from the PAX demo which was Shoot and Take Cover as a single action as presumably a 1st level feat. That is pretty dope, you can basically turn the entire game into a cover shooter XD.
As for the broader picture? As varied as the subclasses are, I'd expect. For the general vibe I'd expect a mix of Fighter (lots of offensive actions) and Rogue (skill actions to mess with your opponents).
Welp, I'd like to reply, but the website keep eating my posts :P
Welp, I'd like to reply, but the website keep eating my posts :P
I'm suspecting it has to do with the changes made during the maintenance yesterday. I haven't noticed any post flip-flopping chronomancy like we had a couple of years ago. But I have noticed it sometimes taking up to a minute to show me a post that I just submitted.
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I haven't noticed any post flip-flopping chronomancy like we had a couple of years ago.
Looks like I spoke too soon.
Quick update: Aim is shared by all Operative subclasses, but is apparently somewhat different depending on your subclass
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Paizocon previews can't come fast enough!
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I mean, if you specifically want something other than what the class is intended to do, you're going to have a rough time. SF2e soldier is intended as a con-tank specialized in area weapons. They don't need fighter's proficiency progression because they primarily force enemies to make saves against their class DC with area weapons.
If that does not suit you, then just pull PF2e's fighter or champion and plug it right in. They'll give you the melee proficiency or high AC you seem to want. Paizo is specifically trying not to waste everyone's time by just reprinting old classes with a sci-fi coat of paint and some greebles bolted onto their gear.
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imo the sf2 field-test mystic is arguably one of the most stacked casters in 2e, it is anything but weak.
Also, I love the idea of Solarian as another class with resourceless feat based spell effects. My favorite jedis are gonna be one of the most interesting classes in the game. The more 2E engine classes taking cues from the kineticist, the better!
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I mean, if you specifically want something other than what the class is intended to do, you're going to have a rough time. SF2e soldier is intended as a con-tank specialized in area weapons. They don't need fighter's proficiency progression because they primarily force enemies to make saves against their class DC with area weapons.
If that does not suit you, then just pull PF2e's fighter or champion and plug it right in. They'll give you the melee proficiency or high AC you seem to want. Paizo is specifically trying not to waste everyone's time by just reprinting old classes with a sci-fi coat of paint and some greebles bolted onto their gear.
I hope the SF2E 2handed melee weapons have limited AOE so that melee soldiers can benefet from their class mechanics as much as a shooting one
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I hope the SF2E 2handed melee weapons have limited AOE so that melee soldiers can benefet from their class mechanics as much as a shooting one
Yeah, I fully expect there to be some way of applying soldier class features to melee weapons. It might not be as straightforward as having area melee weapons, but a way to treat melee weapons *as* area weapons seems in the cards
I think part of the problem with the soldier right now is that what it offers (chonky health and battlefield control) is different from what laypeople expect (disciplined guy who kills stuff). Maybe this can be solved by renaming the class to, like, bombardier or something. But that might be too restrictive, because we want the class to ALSO do melee stuff.
Also, I said this in another thread, but in order to truly stay competitive, I think the soldier's gonna need a proficiency bump. As-is, the class who's supposed to specialize in weapons has the worst accuracy of any dedicated martial, specifically because it will always be at least one point behind in its primary "hit stuff" stat, except when using full auto/area fire. However, giving the resource cost of doing so (two actions and half a clip), that's not going to be the best option all the time. It similarly falls behind on AC due to its most viable weapons all being two-handed, so it can't use shields.
Now, giving soldiers legendary proficiency in both weapons AND armor at high levels would be a bit much. However, I think it's worth considering allowing players to choose: maybe somewhere in the mid-level range, they could get the option to bump proficiency in either their choice of weapon group or armor type. This would allow the soldier to become either hyper-offensive (like a gunslinger or fighter) or hyper-defensive (like a champion or monk), and thus able to cover both "heavy" power fantasies, just not at the same time. No idea if this would be broken or not (since Primary Target allows the soldier to basically ding the same enemy twice for free), but it's important to consider that in vanilla SF2, the soldier and operative will be the only two pure martials available. So, soldiers and operatives will have to cover more ground for those tables that DON'T port over PF2 stuff (which, I imagine, will be most of them). Hm, maybe legendary weapons for operatives, and legendary armor for soldiers? IDK, just thinking out loud over here.
At the very least, I hope soldiers get legendary proficiency in their class DC at some point. If they're going to be married to a specific two-action activity, they might as well be incredible at it.
As an aside, I agree with WWHsmackdown on 2-handed, high-tech melee weapons needing some AOE goodness. This would help them stand out from the massive catalog of armaments that already exist in PF2, and make the soldier very happy. Near-guaranteed damage on at least one guy each round sounds like a nice niche.
Anyway, on to the main topic of the thread: I think the most important lesson to learn from PF2 class design is that each class needs to be both A) super frickin' hot when sticking to its ideal routine, and B) just good enough outside of that routine that players don't feel punished for mixing it up. If you look at the "bad" classes, they usually have a problem with either A or B. For instance, the oracle's ideal routine involves casting its unique, cursebound spells so it can exploit the benefits of its curse while adapting to its drawbacks, but keeping track of those buffs and debuffs is a bit of a chore, and the costs often outweigh the benefits. Meanwhile, the swashbuckler doesn't even have an off-routine to fall back on other than being a worse fighter, so it struggles to stay competitive when it's in a situation where it can't get panache.
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Cover and Move is one of the foundational battle tactics of modern warfare (as it pertains to actual people face to face killing each other and not large hardware/explosives), so the soldier being about laying down covering fire seems fairly novel and modern compared to fighter in space
About 99% of complaints about the SF2 Soldier continue to be about the association with the SF1 Soldier or rather the lack thereof, not the actual class...
Please Paizo, just change the name to anything else, so this can finally stop... it's a poor name for the class anyway.
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I like the Soldier in the Field test, suppressive fire is more solider like than any melee build, how many modern battles were won with melee combat. If I want to play a SF1e style vesk solider with a doshko in SF2e the PF2e fighter is a much better class for it. Other than soldiers how many occupations are trained in using automatic weapons to lay down suppressive fire, so the name sounds fine to me.
I like the Soldier in the Field test, suppressive fire is more solider like than any melee build, how many modern battles were won with melee combat. If I want to play a SF1e style vesk solider with a doshko in SF2e the PF2e fighter is a much better class for it. Other than soldiers how many occupations are trained in using automatic weapons to lay down suppressive fire, so the name sounds fine to me.
I'm pretty sure they are planning to still support a melee-heavy playstyle as an option for the Soldier, so I'm not sure how true that will be in about 6 months. I mean, the Fighter is always an absolute monster with a melee build, but still :D
As for the name, the issue is that "soldier" heavily implies a lot more breadth than the class will ever have. The Soldier delivers very well on the "heavy weapons guy" trope and some actual military specialisations, but mechanically regular soldiers in SF2 would be Operatives, not Soldiers. And even if the name would fit, the needless SF1 controversy it drives is not worth it.
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Also, I said this in another thread, but in order to truly stay competitive, I think the soldier's gonna need a proficiency bump. As-is, the class who's supposed to specialize in weapons has the worst accuracy of any dedicated martial, specifically because it will always be at least one point behind in its primary "hit stuff" stat, except when using full auto/area fire. However, giving the resource cost of doing so (two actions and half a clip), that's not going to be the best option all the time. It similarly falls behind on AC due to its most viable weapons all being two-handed, so it can't use shields.
Now, giving soldiers legendary proficiency in both weapons AND armor at high levels would be a bit much. However, I think it's worth considering allowing players to choose: maybe somewhere in the mid-level range, they could get the option to bump proficiency in either their choice of weapon group or armor type. This would allow the soldier to become either hyper-offensive (like a gunslinger or fighter) or hyper-defensive (like a champion or monk), and thus able to cover both "heavy" power fantasies, just not at the same time. No idea if this would be broken or not (since Primary Target allows the soldier to basically ding the same enemy twice for free), but it's important to consider that in vanilla SF2, the soldier and operative will be the only two pure martials available. So, soldiers and operatives will have to cover more ground for those tables that DON'T port over PF2 stuff (which, I imagine, will be most of them). Hm, maybe legendary weapons for operatives, and legendary armor for soldiers? IDK, just thinking out loud over here.
At the very least, I hope soldiers get legendary proficiency in their class DC at some point. If they're going to be married to a specific two-action activity, they might as well be incredible at it.
It is far from perfect, but I think you are highly underestimating the last iteration of the Soldier we have seen. Because mechanically, that thing is a beast.
Let's start with offense. Your primary attack attribute is not DEX and regular shots are not your main tool either, they're a bonus. The Soldier is all about CON and automatic/area fire combined with Primary Target. There is some progression weirdness with the targeting property and DCs advancing slower and targeting solely Reflex DC has its own problems, so there is still some truth there.
However, even against a single target you get an attack at full bonus and one at (usually) -1, for two actions, both with a two-handed weapon. That is already good. This increases by 1 non-MAP attack against every additional target in your aoe. And ofc you still get half damage on a fail, which essentially no other martial does. On top of that already respectable damage you also apply suppressed, which slows down enemy movement substantially and provides effectively a +1 AC to the entire party against one or several enemies.
So good damage combined with a very good debuff, which makes for a formidable offense.
And defense-wise, you are a 10HP class with heavy armor, usually +1 due to suppressed and (usually) the largest HP pool in the entire game. And likely with abilities like Relentless Endurance from FT1, which further increases that durability. In short, an absolute unit. The devs weren't worried about it being too tanky for a good reason.
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TL:DR to put all of that into perspective:
A tanky level 5 DEX Monk - considered to have high survivability - has 73 HP (8HP ancestry, +3 CON) and 24 AC. A completely normal lvl 5 Soldier has 78 HP and 24 AC (or effectively 25 with suppressed). Of course, the Monk is a whole lot more mobile and should have slightly better saves, but the Soldier shares its survivability somewhat, so overall you provide a comparable benefit to the team. And then the Soldier completely smokes the Monk in terms of offensive potential.
Seems to me like it stacks up quite well.