So... the evolutionist is an interesting issue. We want it, we know we want it, but I'm pretty sure that we don't want it enough to have it get the full kineticist treatment. This is a class that thrives on having lots and lots of options to pick and choose from, but options get expensive. So... this is a thread that's primarily about workshopping ideas on how to make Evolutionist as cool as we really want it to be, while also not demanding too much of the Paizo SF2 design team (or too much page count).
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My first thought...? Grafts. Grafts are really cool if you do them right, and everyone can use them. You could totally put together a strongly-themed "do freaky stuff with your biology" book with evolutionist, biohacker, maybe an appropriate ancestry or two, and a bunch of crazy new gear, including a whole pile of grafts. Let the lore bit be a deep-dive into a few biotech-themed megacorps, and probably a biotech-happy world or two. It would be great.
The thing about grafts is that for most folks, they have limitations. They absolutely require investment, and they could have some sort of "biological load" cost on top of that (with the load you can bear scaling with level and constitution?) that would limit the number of the more serious grafts that you could load on. You can't get overlapping grafts (your arm cannot be both an arcane projection of force and undead) and maybe there are issues if you try to have more than one type or something. I don't know what kind of limitations would be appropriate or fun, but the general idea is that most folks will have at most one or two because past that it's either impossible or just more hassle than it's worth.
Evolutionists are the ones that go deep on it. They get feats and possibly also class features that relax the limitations (like, say, extra investment slots that only work on grafts). They get buffs to their ability to use grafts (like being able to replace graft DC with class DC) and they maybe even get legendary proficiency in unarmed combat (all graft-based attacks would be unarmed). Then you give them some sort of class path setup that lets them focus in on particular graft types (gaining nifty bonuses the more grafts/load/whatever of that type they have) or lets them spread out and get lots of kinds of grafts.
Oh, and for the investment slots... even better than giving freebies would be allowing investment slots to count double when filling with grafts - so that the evolutionist is encouraged to use as little non-graft gear as they can get away with in order to crank on More Grafts.
I acknowledge that this could result in a problematic cash crunch for evolutionists who are trying to leverage their class to its fullest. I know that 3.x classes sometimes had "my class hands me money" as a thing, and that one is maybe not so great, but... possibly a discount? Like, in addition to grafts being half-price for investment slots, maybe they're also just straight-up half price? I dunno. This is mostly me just tossing out ideas.
So yeah. It's not that they're going transhumanist in ways that other people can't. It's that they're able to do a lot more of it, and they're encouraged to do a lot more of it, and they're better at it... and if anyone else wants to have a bit of that magic, then that's exactly what taking it as an archetype is for.
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So, the evolutionst's main gimmick right now is it's building and spending Mutation Points, and I've yet to see anyone (myself included) address this in any post where it's discussed. I bring it up because PF2e already has a similar system: Oracles. They use hex spells and build stacking levels of curse.
So if each subclass, somewhat like the swashbuckler, had specific actions that increased their "mutation rank" Which adds effects like the mutation points do, and certain abilities that lower mutation rank and cause effects, this could be like a non-casting mix of Oracle and Swashbuckler where you basically build preassure and release it to use cool special abilities. So certain actions (and feats) would gain the "Mutation" trait, and using them builds Mutation ranks, and then you would get special abilities and some feats with the "Resequence" trait, and a number, the number indicating how many mutation ranks it takes to use it and how far you have to reduce your mutation rank once you do.
And of course each subclass (Cybernetics, Genetics, Necrograft, Arancics) grants different abilities at each Mutation rank while if you are at maximum mutation rank (which slowly raises over the 20 levels) A significant draw back.
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Now that I think about it, This can actually prevent the need for the Kineticist chassis. If your subclass specific stuff is all in your Mutation rank effects, then you can let feats be generic enough they'd fit with any of the abilities, or just occasional ones that are specific to subclass.
Also, any action given by a graft, implant, prosthetic, imbued magic, etc would gain the "Mutation" trait, giving you insentive to play toward the fantasy of the class.
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I guess I just don't like the mutation points thing?
Like, "build up a resource and then spend it for awesomeness" isn't a bad mechanic overall, and I don't hate it, but it doesn't feel very... evolution-y.
I see the name "evolutionist" and I think "this is someone who's going all-in on transhumanism". In Starfinder (at least SF1) the standard path to transhumanism is grafts.
So an evolutionist would be someone who cared about that stuff. They would have studied the theory behind various kinds of grafts and how they interact with the body. They would have paid real attention to how their own body reacted to things - what worked, what didn't, what could be ameliorated or adjusted for. Where someone else would notice that their new robot arm was acting a little funny and be concerned or maybe blow it off, the evolutionist would know *exactly* what it meant and what the appropriate ways to react were.
That means that their basic core competency is that they can handle having more grafts, and they can get more out of the ones they have. Additional enhancements on top of that (generally in the form of class feats) could also be cool... but building up a pool of stuff that you use to temporarily reshape yourself on the fly just doesn't seem like it fits. That would be more of a mutationist, or perhaps a shifter - someone who's reshaping their body in the moment, rather than slowly augmenting and improving it over the long term.
...and you don't need the kineticist chassis because the entire thing works just fine as a martial.
If you must have mutation points... why not make them a daily invested resource? You wake up int he morning, and you get to adjust what your mutation points are invested in, giving yourself extra reach or extra movespeed or sharper claws or whatever. Have it be a result of careful tuning and adjustments, rather than largely unexplained shapeshifting on the fly.
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I understand your points, but here's how I justify the mutation points
Transhumanism is by nature an unstable process. The mutation points (and mutation ranks in my concept) describe your body and implants reacting to stressful stimuli and forcing temporary adaptations. hmm...
"As a part of your journey to transcend your natural body you have taken a unique graft (which does not have a cost, and does not require investment) called a "Evolution Core". It is from your Evolution Core that many of your abilities extend, and helps your body better adapt to new grafts. (Subclass determines Genetic/Cybernetic/Necro/Arcano). It grants you an additional two investments that can only be used on Grafts or other body modifications. In addition installing Grafts of the appropriate type take half the time and cost.
Your Evolution Core also responds to dangerous stimuli by creating new systems to give you the tools you need to survive."
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The evolutionist and shifter both have the exact same problem. They're billed as beast boy, they come as wolverine. They are incredibly STATIC. The evolutionist and vanguard both had the same problem: the class points weren't worth tracking. I didn't want to use them.
If you want the evolutionist to feel like its evolving and not just "claw guy" they have to change.
Use reactions to gain DR/resistance as a focus pool
Expand it to include utility like reach , weapon properties, and flight and burrow at higher levels.
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I understand your points, but here's how I justify the mutation points
Transhumanism is by nature an unstable process. The mutation points (and mutation ranks in my concept) describe your body and implants reacting to stressful stimuli and forcing temporary adaptations. hmm...
"As a part of your journey to transcend your natural body you have taken a unique graft (which does not have a cost, and does not require investment) called a "Evolution Core". It is from your Evolution Core that many of your abilities extend, and helps your body better adapt to new grafts. (Subclass determines Genetic/Cybernetic/Necro/Arcano). It grants you an additional two investments that can only be used on Grafts or other body modifications. In addition installing Grafts of the appropriate type take half the time and cost.
Your Evolution Core also responds to dangerous stimuli by creating new systems to give you the tools you need to survive."
You can justify anything you want to with enough hand-waving. Starfinder isn't exactly hard science. Why would you want to?
The Evolutionist has a pretty cool story already. They are shaping their body. Piece by piece they are recrafting themselves into a more ideal form. They start with the monk "perfection of the body" thing and take it to the next level. They don't need a unique graft for that.
Now, from a gamist perspective, it's true that they do need some sort of interesting mechanic to play around with in battle. Walking the transhumanist path is great as a long-term story arc and source of characterization, but it's not much for interesting mechanics in mid-fight.
Even there, though, I don't feel like mutation points are the best path. It just doesn't feel right. What about... spending HP? Like, they know their body and grafts really well. They put real effort into maintaining and optimizing... and when the situation calls for it, they know how to push their upper limits to get performance that they need in the moment but aren't yet able to achieve safely. That sounds like spending HP, to me. It wouldn't necessarily be spending large amounts of HP, in most cases. A lot of times, it would be dragging out little advantages for small costs. Give yourself an extra 5 feet of movement here, deal a bit of extra damage there, or perhaps pull off a particularly impressive flurry attack that hurts you a little while it hurts your enemies a lot. It also leans into the "nature red in tooth and claw" thing a bit better - makes the class more visceral. How hard are you going to push yourself?
As an alternate form, which would be harder to balance but possibly cooler, have a unified strain mechanic. Your more powerful abilities take strain... and each class path has a different way to absorb strain. So strain might express itself as HP damage if you're going down an undead path (the part of you that is undead drinks of your vitality more deeply), but might come in the form of save-vs-glitch (or just plain glitching) if you're going cybernetic. You might even have feats along the way that would give you other ways of handling strain, as you develop new coping mechanisms. If you want a sort of press-your-luck mechanic, then you could have strain be the sort of thing that would build, and require fort saves (with DC based on the strain) to stave off every round. If you can make it to the end of the encounter, you can take the time to handle it and it's not a problem, but if you fail one of those saves, all of your strain comes due right then, and not necessarily in a particularly controllable way. Of course, it might be worth it to you to end the fight spasming on the ground, wracked by glitches, if that meant that you were able to start the fight as a terrible whirlwind of bloody destruction. Hope you didn't fail the fort save on round 1.
...and that leads itself to different strategies, with how much strain you take on, what you're willing to take it on for, how much you try to bleed off in various ways as you go, and so forth. It also leads to some interesting implications about the character. You know that you have the skills necessary to push your body past what others would consider "safe". You can push it a little bit past, and keep everything under control, or you can push it further, and start rolling to dice. What do you do with this knowledge? What do the strategies you have chosen say about you?
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Frankly I don't like the strain or the HP spending. Those don't fit the way I see it going. So to move away from Mutation points/ranks hmm...
One feature I'd like is if there were special feats in the class, specific to your subclass, that you could take INSTEAD OF an ancestry feat. Really build into that idea you are becoming something more. And I'd want a mechanic that incentivized/rewarded/better enabled you to get grafts.
To be honest, I can't really think of anything that would serve as a good in-combat mechanic. I actually agree that I see a problem with the mutation points narratively. If this is about evolving, you shouldn't have temporary adaptations, but permanent changes, and there is no way to balance that kind of thing.
I do like the "alternate ways to spend ancestry feats" idea. That's clever. The page space is a bit expensive, but you could evade at least some of that by having it be a list of existing ancestry feats. Alternately, as a way of saving even more page space, you could just give them free adopted ancestry and/or "adopted heritage" feats, along with a side comment that this particular version would let you take feats that are based in physiological differences.
Actually... you could wrap it all into a level 1 class feat pretty elegantly. Call it Evolved Ancestry or something. You get Adopted Ancestry, you may select a versatile heritage rather than an ancestry if you prefer, and you have full access to feats for that ancestry/heritage regardless of whether or not they are physiological. You also get a free level 1 ancestry feat for that ancestry or heritage, and possibly even allow access to feats that are normally only available at level 1 even if you don't happen to be level 1.
Halfling evolutionist, at level 5, takes Cultural Adaptability (human). claims Natural Ambition as their given first level feat. Chooses Evolved Ancestry, with the Versatile Heritage Aiuvarin. As first level feat, takes Elf Atavism. Will have lots and lots of options for ancestry feats once they hit level 9.
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I agree, with the caveat that it is "limited" by subclass.
Genetics can take from any humanoid, animalistic (excluding Surkis), or plant based ancestries WITH THE EXCEPTION of ancestry feats that provide spells.
Cybernetics can take from the Android, the Automaton, or the Poppet ancestries.
Necrograft can take from Skeletons and the Borai heritage (maybe some of the Undead archetypes as well)
Arcano can take from any of the versatile heritages based out Outsiders, and Any ancestry feats that grant access to a spell.
Just straight-up giving them wide-spectrum access to ancestry feats would be another way to do it, though one a bit more expensive in build budget. If they were going to go that route, I'd suggest also giving them extra ancestry feats to work with - like, instead of feats at 1/5/9/13/17, make it a full-on "you get an ancestry feat at every odd level". Possibly also give some associated benefits - like letting Arcano use class DC for their innate spells.
I'm not sure I'd want to take it quite that far, though. I feel like "going deep in ancestry feats" should be the sort of thing that evolutionists can do, but not the sort of thing they must do. Feels like the sort of thing that some folks would find exciting but maybe not everyone, you know? I'm just not sure how to make that a thing.
Maybe make the subclasses a bit beefier and have it vary by subclass?
- The idea of giving Arcano the ability to use class DC for innate spells and then giving them access to lots of innate spells feels pretty cool. If you don't think that's cool, then why are you going arcano? It kind of backdoors them into being a hybrid caster, but that, too, feels very on-brand here.
- For Cybernetics, the idea of being able to push yourself at the risk of maybe glitching seems pretty on-brand, especially if you combine it with feats of features that improve your resistance to glitches - both protecting you better against outside attacks of that variety and improving your ability to push your own limits. Maybe as a focus point thing? The idea that cybernetics might have some cool stuff that ran on focus points seems pretty appropriate - discharging batteries and capacitors and magazines and whatnot that you then have to charge back up again, reload, and refill before you can use them again. Being able to push past that and effectively get more focus point casts at the risk of glitching also feels about right. Things like "take a second flourish action in a single turn, then glitch" or "take another reaction even though you're out of reactions, then glitch" also seem like they might work.
I... really don't know what I'd give the other two, though.
When it first came out, I thought mutation points were just a rehash of Solarian/Vanguard design, and I am still correct. It's not great; it doesn't feel great to play.
Evolutionists should have a "war form" that they burst into when a crisis happens. Stronger, faster, natural weapons/attacks. Anime has loads of these sorts, but it's also common in regular science fiction as well as World of Darkness games like Werewolf and Demon. Demon, specifically, allows you to build your celestial form, which is how I would see this play out in SF2 with feats.
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So as far as the ancestry feats go, I'd say let it be a two step process. By default they can replace ancestry feats from their own ancestry, with those from appropriate ancestries (I'm still very much of the limit it by subclass) and have a class feat that allows you to pick up 1 or 2 ancestry feats (they tend to be weaker than class feats I think) from appropriate ancestries/heritages.
I think, mechanically, the Cybernetics subclass should be all about building up resistences.
I agree with you on the Arcano subclass. but more over, it gives the ability to Spellshape OTHER CHARACTER's spells, since you are basically approaching apotheosis. you gain two normal spell shape feats (which you can use on your turn to modify a spell another character casts, or that you cast. and a unique spellshape action, for 2 action you can "Unravel spell" If you see a spell cast, or other magical effect, you can perform a spell (class) attack against the save DC of the spell/magical ability.
Critical Fail: you take 1 extra damage per damage die of the spell as you fail to properly absorb the spell
Fail: you gain +1 to the save or AC agaisnt the spell/magical effect until the start of your next turn
success: All targets of the spell/effect gain +1 to the save, their AC against the spell/Effect
Critical Success: Same as success, but all targets also get resistance to any damage from the spell.
Necro should, ironically, be about heal stalling. Since Necromantic creatures have so many ways to restore health, it is all about creating great big sacks of temporary hit points to absorb damage. Whether by feeding off of fallen enemies, or having an innate attack that draws vitality/void out of your target to create this.
Genetics is the more damage oriented class, with some light passive healing.
The role I would envision for Evolutionist, is a Tank.
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I feel like the evolutionist should be somewhat role-flexible. Like, yeah, you can do the evolutionist thing to make yourself all big and durable and able to take a lot of hits, and once you've done that, you can throw in some interesting grapple stuff for the necessary lockdown, and play tank that way. That's a reasonable idea for them, and images fo doign that with cyber, necro, and gene spring readily to mind. At the same time, the concept also has "Check out my cybergun!" and the prowling ambush predator. Like, if you're looking at references in popular culture, Evolutionist would be the obvious class for wolverine.
So.. I guess I'd say a baseline of "durable damage-dealer", with at least some potential love towards athletics maneuvers. At that point, shifting into the "tank" role is just a matter of investing a bit more heavily than normal into damage mitigation, putting a bit into being better at grappling, and picking up a good sticky reaction or two. Alternately, you could go heavy into melee damage dealing with perhaps a side of debuff or go ranged with whatever integrated ranged weaponry you had, or even lean in on the arcano side and turn yourself into a sort of hybrid shooter/caster with an eclectic pile of innate utility spells.
I think we maybe don't want to lean too hard on explicit subclasses here. Instead, possibly have a set of feats that go off of integration. Like, you've got a feat that will let you drain life from the foe or whatever. The power of the feat scales on how heavily you've invested into necrotic grafts, but does so in a somewhat diminishing returns way - so if you don't have any it does very little. If you have only 1, it's pretty anemic. If you have three or so, it's pretty solid. If you have five, it's better than three... but it's not *that* much better than three. So you can pick a type to invest in heavily, and try to get all you can off of the integration feats for that type, but it'll leave you a bit inflexible. Alternately, you could go with two different kinds - say, arcano/necro for a sort of licholutionist feel, and be able to take more of these feats usefully, but they wouldn't be quite as good. It would also generally encourage you to take as many grafts as you could, which I feel is a good thing for the evolutionist. Like, there's a bunch of grafts out there that are sort of meh, and mostly you'd just go whizzing straight past them... but if it took your cyber integration from 3 to 4, and you already had three feats that scaled off of that....
I disagree with WOlverine being an evolutionist. He's an animal instinct barbarian with a weird graft on his skeleton.
Cyborg from DC comics is an evolutionist. Mr. Sinister is an evolutionist. Phillip Whittibane/Emperor Belos is an evolutionist.
Wolverine isn't an animal barb. He isn't any kind of barb. He gets angry sometimes, but it doesn't actually make him any stronger in any way, and it doesn't put him on a timer or make him tired afterwards. It doesn't thicken his skin or give him a natural attack that he doesn't have otherwise or cause any physiological changes at all. He doesn't have a chosen kind of animal, let alone follow any sort of anathema to avoid disrespecting them. He's named after an animal, but I've never seen any particular evidence that he cares about them.
What does he have?
- He regenerates.
- Above and beyond that, his general durability is profound.
- He has highly tuned instincts and reflexes.
- He has adamantium bone reinforcement.
- He has adamantium claws that come out of his arms.
- He appears to be biologically immortal.
You could model all of that except for the immortality with an entirely reasonable set of grafts (evo and cyber) and maybe some support feats that would fit into an evolutionist just fine.
Cyborg is also an evolutionist. My Sinister I'd have to dig into further. From what little I know of him, I feel like he was more interested in evolving other people than evolving himself, but I could easily have missed things about him.
Emperor Belos... I'm really not sure about. He seems to be more someone whose body is changing as a price of his magic, rather than being someone who is upgrading themselves to a more ideal state over time. Still, this is another case where I don't know a lot about the situation. I could easily be wrong, here.
The best fit for wolverine is sort of besides the point.
If you make wolverine with an evolutionist or shifter you can get pretty close. I'm sure something else can be considered more optimal but there's no doubt it works.
If you try to make beast boy..neither class does it.
The classes are very static. You can have claws enhanced senses etc but you can't get the diversity and reactivity of beast boy.
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Sinister is upgrading himself, this is how he's survived for centuries, and why he's so interested in mutants.
Belos has been putting magic into his body in order to stay alive and maintain his tyrannical rule.
WOlverine has had one alteration to his body, the metal. The rest of it is all natural to him, and he has no interest in further boosting his abilities through genetic or cybernetic alteration. Also, one of his most signature moves is "Berserker Rage". yeah, he is fueled off rage and becomes more animalistic and dangerous when he uses it.
All of this is just fun thought experiment though, and you would build him how you would build him. I just kind of ran out of ideas for how the Evolutionist would be done in SF2e
WOlverine has had one alteration to his body, the metal. The rest of it is all natural to him
This is focusing entirely on the flavor of the class. Class is largely a mechanical concept. Arguably its the largest mechanical concept. Flavor you can redo easily as a player. Class mechanics not so much.
If you have versatile and adaptable only as flavor but not as mechanics you violate show don't tell, and can't play what attracts you to the class.
If you play wolverine Defrex as an evolutionist and don't change but you do grow claws, claw things, track someone by scent and get mentally unstable as the fight progresses...the character still works. If you want to have a grab bag of tricks to react to situations, you don't.
I'm belaboring the point because you cannot rely on a classes flavor to make up for mechanical shortfalls. They have to work together not in opposition.
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I'm currently playing evolutionists in 2 different scenarios. Acts of Association and Pact World Warriors! Having a lot of fun with both of them. Both evolutionists have a charisma of 14 so they have some social skills for out of combat. They also have basic hirelings to help with tech skills. For non-combat encounters, this has worked well so far and has been very flavorful at the same time.
In combat, the shorter combats have been ok mostly dependent on the dice but still very flavorful especially when combined with using intimidate with a Voice Amplifier and Grim Trophies.
One combat is going into round 8, having 7 mutation points stored up is a huge advantage. One reason this fight is taking so long is the opponents are spaced out far apart and getting +5 +10 and now +20 to move speed has helped a lot with my melee-only evolutionest. Getting +1 to AC +1 saving throws and +5 to damage helps a lot too.
The drawbacks for my sepulchral niche fit the character's flavor so well I at first forgot I could roll a Will save to avoid them, and was just taking them because it fits my character's flavor to do so.
The tricky part I find about making an evolutionist is if the end goal is to evolve you kind of have to start at not being good or even sucking at what you want to evolve into. The only part of the class that really plays into that is when you get more skills at higher levels, this is when you can become good at things you couldn't do before, but this mostly affects non-combat skills, and most people build their characters for combat, whereas my evolutionist goals as a professional wrestler is to be a video personality and someday out do Zo! So gaining physical mutations to help with combat plays into the wrestling part. Gaining skills at higher levels, lets me start off as a dumb brute and evolve to be smarter and more skilled video personality business manager at higher levels, and becoming undead at 20th level helps compete with competition that doesn't die of old age.
But I also play a goblin merchant sorcerer in PF2e with no combat spells and I don't just mean damage spells, all my spells are for social encounters or to help sell things or run a shop. So not sure if anything I've ever said about playing a class is of any use to anyone other than myself. Despite making my crazy concept work for me, I'm not sure I could get many more concepts like that out of the current evolutionist, it's possible but tricky to find the right combinations.
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A Barathu evolutionist looks like a pretty strong combo
An early stage barathu’s body is mutable and can adapt to many different situations. Once every 1d4 rounds as a swift action, an early stage barathu can reshape its body and adjust its chemistry to gain one of the following qualities. The adaptation lasts until the beginning of the early stage barathu’s next turn. Unlike more mature barathus, early stage barathus are not generally capable of more complex adaptations.
Upper limb refinements enable the barathu to add an additional amount of damage to melee attacks equal to its Strength modifier.
-A toughened dermal layer grants its a +1 racial bonus to AC.
-Developed lower limbs grant it a base speed of 15 feet.
-Molecular-level modifications grant it resistance 2 against a single energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic).
-Elongated limbs extend its reach to 10 feet.
This kind of plays into my idea that the evolutionist might be better as a versatile heritage than a class, evolution is something species go through, classes I tend to think of as occupations, you can gain skills in an occupation but you generally don't mutate your occupation to get ahead in an occupation, but your species evolving could help your occupation.
I'm having a lot of fun with the class in SF1e I hope we see an evolutionist of some kind in SF2e it's a fun concept, but I'm not set on what form it takes, there's a lot of different directions it could go.
This kind of plays into my idea that the evolutionist might be better as a versatile heritage than a class, evolution is something species go through, classes I tend to think of as occupations, you can gain skills in an occupation but you generally don't mutate your occupation to get ahead in an occupation, but your species evolving could help your occupation.
I'm having a lot of fun with the class in SF1e I hope we see an evolutionist of some kind in SF2e it's a fun concept, but I'm not set on what form it takes, there's a lot of different directions it could go.
Being a heritage would mean probably not getting to actually feel like an evolutionist until level 14.
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Being a heritage would mean probably not getting to actually feel like an evolutionist until level 14.This kind of plays into my idea that the evolutionist might be better as a versatile heritage than a class, evolution is something species go through, classes I tend to think of as occupations, you can gain skills in an occupation but you generally don't mutate your occupation to get ahead in an occupation, but your species evolving could help your occupation.
I'm having a lot of fun with the class in SF1e I hope we see an evolutionist of some kind in SF2e it's a fun concept, but I'm not set on what form it takes, there's a lot of different directions it could go.
You would get all your 1st level evolutionist abilities as part of the versatile heritage starting abilities, and then higher-level evolutionist abilities would become ancestry feats.
The problem with the evolutionist is it's not really a class, ancestry, or heritage it's more like a condition, an affliction, that is causing you to mutate. A condition or affliction would normally affect any class or ancestry. A versatile heritage is one way to do that to a lesser extent than the full evolutionist class. Adding an archetype on top of a versatile heritage would be closer to the full evolutionist class. This way because you still have a class so the evolutionist versatile heritage or archetype doesn't have to be completely martial combat-focused.
You would get all your 1st level evolutionist abilities as part of the versatile heritage starting abilities, and then higher-level evolutionist abilities would become ancestry feats.
When most versatile heritages starting abilities are things like "you have low light vision and single natural weapon" after you dedicate both your heritage & feat I feel like that wont satisify me, especially since it means you'll be trading away what little representation of your alien species can provide in SF2e, now that species having any interesting capabilities will now rely on ancestry feats.
I also feel like your condition arguement could be said of classes like Oracle.
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You would get all your 1st level evolutionist abilities as part of the versatile heritage starting abilities, and then higher-level evolutionist abilities would become ancestry feats.When most versatile heritages starting abilities are things like "you have low light vision and single natural weapon" I feel like that wont satisify me, especially since it means you'll be trading away what little representation of your alien species can provide in SF2e, now that species having any interesting capabilities will now rely on ancestry feats.
This is why I used Barathu. as an example. It has a lot of the evolutionist early abilities built in. For a versatile heritage to work you would need a blank mutant ancestry that requires a versatile heritage to give it a species type. If you did the archetype as a free archetype then it's not taking away from other features. You could even break up the archetype into 2 archetypes for early and late-stage evolution. That way you could choose up to 3 levels of evolution for your character.
This is why I used Barathu. as an example. It has a lot of the evolutionist early abilities built in. For a versatile heritage to work you would need a blank mutant ancestry that requires a versatile heritage to give it a species type.
That just indicates it really shouldn't be a versatile heritage. Playing an evolutionist shouldn't mean you don't get to play with an ancestry anymore.
If you did the archetype as a free archetype then it's not taking away from other features. You could even break up the archetype into 2 archetypes for early and late-stage evolution. That way you could choose up to 3 levels of evolution for your character.
Or they could just make it as a class and not have to break it down into the equivalent of just a piecemeal multiclass archetype that takes forever to reflect the pitch.
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This is insane if this all stacks (strength 18 +4 melee damage) 1st level Barathu evolutionist.
From the evolutionist class features:
1: Melee adaptive strike deals damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier.
2: At 5 mutation points saved up: Once per round, when you deal damage with your adaptive strike, you can increase the damage dealt to one target by an amount equal to half your evolutionist level (minimum +1 damage).
3: Instinct: Once per round while you have 1 or more MP, when you deal damage with your adaptive strike to a living creature, you can increase the damage dealt to that creature by an amount equal to half your MP total, rounded up
From the Barathu (Early Stage) Adaptations:
4: Upper limb refinements enable the barathu to add an additional amount of damage to melee attacks equal to its Strength modifier.
If that all stacks, on round 6 of combat with 5 mutation points saved up, the damage would be 1d6+4+1+3+4