|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just finished doing 26 combats with a two parties of four. As we don't have a fourth SF class from Field Tests yet, player opted to take a PF2e class for the 4th.
They initially wanted to do a polearm fighter, I said they could do that, but they should also do it with a ranged class because Reactive Strike is not on the Soldier (they notably have a weaker version) and because of Starfinder's ranged focus.
So the parties were
Level 1 - Envoy (Guns Blazing), Soldier (Bombard), Mystic (Healing), Ranger (Precision, Ranged) or Fighter (Polearm, Melee)
Level 5 - Envoy (Guns Blazing), Soldier (Bombard), Mystic (Healing), Fighter (Gun, ranger AT) or Fighter (Polearm, melee)
Full builds can be found here Level 1,Level 5
The combats were split into workdays of 4 encounters each for both parties (1 at level 1, 2 at level 5), we had only 1 encounter that we needed to redo (which we did once for both) hence the 26 rather than 24 encounters.
I'll just open with the closing thoughts on the two classes as the rest of this post will be detailing the builds, combats and efficacy of each class in each combat.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Enemies & Ranged Focus
This is a preface to the classes that I think is essential to understand. At low levels, ranged damage is pretty bad in Pathfinder 2e's paradigm. With no actual changes to this, this remains true for Starfinder 2e as well. Melees do more than double the damage due to having their +4 stat mod, while this is partially rectified at level 4 with striking weapons and more rectified at level 8 with weapon spec + elemental runes, it is still a massive issue at low levels.
Many of the enemies appear to be built like PCs and as such do a single dice of damage with no bonus (See: Aeon Guard, Corpse Fleet Infantry). Not only is their damage far below the expected for their level (both are beneath Low, even with the suppressed damage bonus on the Aeon Guard), which makes them extremely non-threatening, it also leads to a pillow fight where both sides actually struggle to do any damage to each other unless they roll well on both attack and damage.
It's possible that these enemies are intentionally low damage because SF PCs are intentionally low damage, but that simply means that anyone with an actual damage bonus they can apply (str melee, precision edge, etc.) is the only threatening PC.
In addition to that, many of these guns have extremely low range - usually just within a stride or two for the first ranged increment. They're worse, in many regards, than a bow - losing out in both range and damage, while needing to reload. This means that melee characters don't really struggle to "close the distance" to get their far more effective attacks off, and starting combats at 200+ft away is somewhat unviable because everyone will have massive ranged increment penalties.
As a final note, with so many enemies having fire damage laser attacks, the value of fire resistance is extremely high. In the level 5 playtest, the entire party had Nephilim Resistance (fire) which essentially nullified the damage output of the laser enemies. This might just be because we have such a limited preview of enemies, and the full set has more variance in damage types for ranged attacks, but if 50% of ranged enemies are going to be using lasers (and therefore fire) this will be an issue.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Guns
I have a number of issues with guns as presented
- 1) Enemies use them, if I have a lot of enemies especially with automatic or area fire I have to track the bullets for each enemy separately. That's a lot of hassle.
- 2) Most feel like their range is too low for a ranged focused game.
- 3) I feel like the formatting for automatic and area fire could be more succinctly worded as just a single "Area fire" trait that includes a template, e.g. Area Fire (30ft cone). The current version of half range increment seems to strangle the range on the automatic weapons because otherwise they'd get a massive cone. This would allow having an automatic rifle with 100ft increment, but only a 20ft cone. If it's a burst you can put it in the first ranged increment.
- 4) Usage scaling. Don't really understand why capacity and usage both go up with level such that you always end up with the same number of shots. Initially I thought usage was only if you did Area Fire, but on rereading that's not it. Seems to just add extra complexity for no real gain.
- 5) Using the Pathfinder 2e paradigm of no stat to damage makes them really low damage compared to average enemy HP at low levels.
- 6) Enemies are missing a DC for automatic fire.
For this game we assumed there was ballistic versions of the laser rifles available, with slightly lower range in return for concussive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Soldier
This might be just due to the limited scope of the field test, but I feel the Soldier has a very stuck routine. Every single turn was Area Fire, they never really had a reason to do anything else. Third action was Demoralize, Reload or (when they got it) Dread Marshal. Couldn't Strike due to unwieldy.
Having a 2 action routine is not great in this game because it means ducking behind cover and Taking Cover just becomes something that you can't really do because your main damage output is locked behind spending 2 actions every turn.
It's really hard to hit more than 1 enemy with area fire in this game, because many enemies are ranged there's almost no reason for them to stand that close to each other unless forced to (Corpse Fleet Infantry). This is different from a melee focused game, where enemies may group up to hit one person in melee.
Bombard seems far and away the best subclass due to inflicting suppress on success, and Warning Shot only seems to work with Bombard. The DC reduction on allies was relevant only once in these 26 combats, because the soldier only splashed an ally once.
Suppressed only worked if the enemies were 25 speed, and needed to get in melee (Nihilis due to aforementioned fire resistance, Bastorox). If they had more speed, such as the 45 speed glass serpent or crest-eaters, the speed penalty didn't matter. Especially because of the soldier's limit to rather low range weapons, any speed of 40 or greater will close the distance even while suppressed.
In my opinion, Suppressed should scale because enemies get more speed as you get higher in CRs - maybe halving speed.
Basically I just want it to have more interesting things to do on its turn, and for suppressed to scale properly.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Envoy
Similar issue to Soldier, unlike Thaumaturge or Ranger you have to use Get Em every turn, which leaves little room for anything else. Want to demoralize? Have to hope the enemy is already in 30ft of you, otherwise you can't really because Get Em + Strike takes up 2 actions. Similarly striding to cover and taking cover is also not an option.
Get Em should really be either compressed with another action, or last longer than a single turn.
The half-cha to self damage somewhat helps with their low level damage, but doesn't scale very well at all past there. It's occupying some halfway between support and striker, but feel way less effective at it than it should be.
Easily the least powerful member of the party.
----------------------------------------------------------
Mystic
This class is easily S tier right next to heal font cleric. Vitalize and Transfer Vitality allow resourceless, large bursts of healing that can just go on all day. With the remaster focus changes, having 2-3FP per combat to spend on vitalize is already incredibly strong. Its bard/cleric-like chassis with wis KAS makes it quite durable.
The Mystic in these playtests barely even touched their spell slots, Vitalize and Transfer Vitality were pretty much enough for them to have a significant contribution on every combat.
Primal mystic's focus spell is significantly worse, and I wish they got more ways to use their vitality pool that competed with just dumping it all for a 1a big heal.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Encounters @ Level 1 (Melee Party)
Encounter 1 - 1x Cybernetic Zombie, 2x Corpse Fleet Infantry (Severe)
Init - Fighter, Mystic, Envoy, Cyber Zombie, Corpse Fleet (Left), Soldier, Corpse Fleet (Right)
- Fighter crits a corpse fleet which kills it, enemies really struggle to do enough damage in return. Level 1 melee vs ranged things. Slashing weakness on both enemies probably helps a lot. Fighter also crits cyber zombie which basically one shots it.
- Some above-average rolls on the rest of the party's ranged damage.
- Very easy battle
Encounter 2 - 2x Computer Glitch Gremlin, 1x Corpse Fleet Infantry (Moderate)
Init - Envoy, Soldier, Mystic, Gremlin (Bottom), Fighter, Gremlin (Top), Corpse Fleet
- Not a really hard encounter. Fighter fails both saves vs Thunderstrike but gremlins roll low.
- Rest of the party's combined damage output can take out the fleet infantry and the gremlins don't do much afterwards.
Encounter 3 - 1x Aeon Guard Soldier, 2x Cybernetic Zombie (Extreme)
Init - Mystic, Fighter, Envoy, Cyber Zombie (Right), Aeon Guard, Soldier, Cyber Zombie (Left)
- Mystic uses runic weapon on the fighter
- Fighter cleaves through a zombie in 1 turn
- Literally the only character that matters is the fighter. They contribute ~90% of the party's damage output. Pretty sure the fighter (and maybe the mystic for healing) could have solo'd these encounters.
- Spells used: Runic Weapon
- Aeon Guard hits like a wet noodle, a creature 3 should not be doing 1d8 damage. It crit the fighter and didn't even do 1/2 of their health as damage WITH the suppress bonus.
Encounter 4 - 2x Tashtari (Extreme)
Init - Mystic, Tashtari (Right), Fighter, Envoy, Tashtari (Left), Soldier
- Some really bad dice luck on concealment checks after getting muzzle flashed (several 1-4s) means a 2HP tashtari lives far longer than it should.
- Fighter goes down after Mystic used both Heal and Vitalize, one tashtari still at full HP, party loses because everyone else has very little damage.
- Spells used: Runic Weapon.
- Winnable with different dice luck, probably not in the party's favour though (maybe 40%)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Encounters @ Level 1 (Ranged Party)
Encounter 1 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Can't hunted shot with SF guns because they're all reload 1 (the ranger swapped to a bow after realising this)
- Not really that painful these enemies are super low damage
Encounter 2 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Still really easy, mystic might have gone down to double thunderstrikes but the enemies' damage past that is basically nil
Encounter 3 (Redo)
Init - same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Party wins but envoy hits dying 4 (hero point to survive staying at wounded 3).
- This is with soldier and envoy switching to their backup slashing weapons to make use of weakness 10 slashing.
- Aeon Guard struggles to do any damage. Crit and hit on the envoy did only 3/4 of their HP, required 2 follow up hits from zombie to get to 0...
- Spells used: Runic Weapon
Encounter 4 (redo)
Init - same as before, replace fighter with ranger
- Tashtaris get pretty lucky this time, both first muzzle beam attacks crit. One on the ranger who falls unconscious to persistent damage, one on the mystic and highrolls KOing them outright.
- Party very likely does not have anywhere near enough damage to win this, would need significant luck (maybe 5-15%)
- Spells used: Runic weapon
----------------------------------------------------
Encounters @ level 5 (Melee party)
5th level test
Encounter 1
Init - Fighter (29), Envoy (17), Mystic, Serpent, Soldier, both guards
Enemies - Glass Serpent x1, Aeon Guard Soldier x2 (Moderate)
- Yes this is the nerfed glass serpent as per the reddit post, -2 to hit and -2 to damage on both attacks.
- All characters have nephilim resistance (fire) so aeon guards do so little damage it might as well be zero, even when critting.
- Fight over once the serpent died, which even with See the Unseen and the Mystic using Point Out constantly so the party could hit... took 3 full rounds of actions.
- Without see the unseen, the serpent can likely TPK or get a couple of deaths by using Sneak. It is very hard to find and even harder to stick damage to. I don't want to repeat this, but it follows for all future serpent encounters.
- Spells used: See the unseen
Encounter 2
Init - Soldier, Mystic, Fighter (28), Envoy (23), Enemies
Enemies - Corpse Fleet Officer x2, Corpse Fleet Infantry x6 (Severe)
- Very bad rolls on enemy side, officers miss pretty much every attack. The one that does hit is a pistol shot which does 1 damage post resist (1 void 5 fire)
- Rest of the enemies get mulched by fighter
- Officers can't flurry the fighter because of Reactive Strike
Encounter 3
Init - Envoy (29), Fighter (18->29 danger sense), Tashtari (Bottom left), Mystic, Soldier, rest of enemies
Enemies - 1x Tashtari Alpha, 4x Tashtari (Severe)
- Party constantly succeeds saves vs flash
- Fire resist makes the tashtaris do very little damage (their bite attack is quite weak)
- Fighter carves up the alpha
- Not that hard
Encounter 4
Init - Mystic, Envoy, Serpents (26, 25), Soldier (17), Fighter (16)
Enemies - 2x Glass Serpent (Moderate)
- Good rolls for party, bad rolls for snake, party wins
- If the snakes had rolled 1 higher on round 1, or if the second snake hit at all, probably would have been a loss. Yes, unnerfed serpents would have caused a loss.
- Strategy relies on mystic using see the unseen, then revealing light, to uninvis the serpents. Otherwise sneak makes this a TPK.
- Spells used: See the unseen, revealing light x2
Encounter 5
Init - Soldier, Fighter (29), Envoy (27->29 danger sense), Nihili (Middle), Nihili (Right), Mystic, Nihili (Left)
Enemies - 3x Nihili (Severe)
- Pretty lucky max roll -> CF save area fire
- Fire resist forces nihilis into melee, way too slow to get anywhere relevant and get cut to pieces by fighter.
Encounter 6
Init - Envoy (28), Fighter (23->28 danger sense), Bastorox (26), Emganat (Bottom), Soldier, Mystic, Emganat (other two)
Enemies - 1x Bastorox, 3x Emganat (Severe)
- Burrow kiting is a serious issue, a 3rd level monster should not have the ability to burrow and a ranged attack
- Bastorox died round 2, playing this out is fruitless - mystic has 1 vitalize and a slowly regenerating pool of healing that should outpace the emganat's single strike damage per round. 4 ready attacks from the party will likely win.
Encounter 7
Init - Elite Bastorox (30), Fighter (24), Envoy (18->24 danger sense), Mystic, Soldier, both Nihilis
Enemies - 1x Elite Bastorox, 2x Nihili (Extreme)
- Again not really too hard, 25 speed enemies struggle to close space.
- Mystic keeps fighter and self topped off after a bioelectric bolt
- Couple nat 20s on the party's side
- Easy win
- Resources used: Practiced Influencer
Encounter 8
Init - Crest-Eaters (3 right - 31, 30, 30), Envoy (22), Fighter (19->22 danger sense), Crest Eater (left), Soldier, Mystic
Enemies - 4x Crest-Eater (Severe)
- Crest eaters win initiative and beat the party to a pulp. Envoy, soldier and mystic basically forced to eat extreme+ attack high damage reactive strikes to do anything due to 10ft reach.
- Fighter drops on round 2, party concedes.
- Mystic did manage to get off a CF calm though.
- Spells used: Calm.
Encounter 8 (Redo)
Init - Soldier, Fighter (28), Envoy (24->28 danger sense), Crest-Eaters (3 rightmost, 26, 25, 24), Mystic, Crest-Eater (Leftmost)
Enemies - 4x Crest-Eater (Severe)
- Mystic gets a good 2 F 1 CF calm, and 3 hero points spent on r1 ensure a crest eater dies
- Party win from there, overall probably 60-70% this party wins a severe encounter, monster definitely overtuned.
- Soldier and Envoy don't do enough damage and get pummelled by reactive strike. Encounter winning is entirely down to Calm and fighter.
- Spells used: Calm.
--------------------------------------
Encounters @ level 5 (Ranged party)
Encounter 1 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged.
- See the Unseen makes this easy, the aeon guards still pose no actual threat despite scoring two critical hits on the mystic they managed to do a total of about 10 damage.
- Spells used: See the Unseen.
Encounter 2 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Level 1 enemies do basically no damage, even a CF vs area fire rolls a 1 on the 1d6 for a grand total of 2 damage.
- Both lead salvos miss, the 25 speed officers struggle to get into melee to do their flurry
Party wins pretty easily.
Encounter 3 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Fire resist nullifies tashtari's ranged attacks, leaving them only with an extremely weak melee option
- Easy win for party
Encounter 4 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replaced melee fighter with ranged
- Envoy rolls straight 15+s in the first 2 rounds of combat, and 2 nat 20 crits, defeating one serpent before it gets a second turn
- Still dangerously close to KOing the mystic and getting a win by Sneak afterwards.
Needed 2 Revealing Lights and See Invis, a perfect counter
- If there were a 3rd serpent it's a definite loss, as of currently it might be ~50/50
- Spells used: See the Unseen, Revealing Light x2.
Encounter 5 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Same story, fire damage ranged weapon forces Nihili to engage in melee. Too slow to do so
- Low AC is a killer, they get crit a lot. They don't have significantly better HP.
- Did use gravity grab to drag the fighter into flanking. Still missed twice.
Encounter 6 (Redo)
Init - Same as before, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Burrow kiting makes encounter take forever but emganats can't really do enough damage to burn through 2 vitalizes and vitality pool
- Not very hard
Encounter 7 (Redo)
Init - same as before replace melee fighter with ranged
- Mystic having good fort and will makes them really hard to nab with suffocation
- Took a bit longer than the melee party due to lacking damage output
- Still very easy though, the fighter got down to maybe 1/3 and was the only one that took meaningful damage. Everything else was resourcelessly healed off by the mystic with 2 vitalizes and transfer.
Encounter 8 (Redo with init 1)
Init - Same as before replace melee fighter with ranged
- Positioning looks weird, but that's because the party is deployed to block for the mystic, as is the crest eaters have a hard time threatening the mystic with more than 3 attacks and 2 reactive strikes
- The party takes a couple reactive strikes and a few hits killing one threatening crest eater so the mystic can step out and Calm the other 3. They all fail, so party wins. This singular set of rolls is basically all that matters in this fight.
- Other party probably could have won with the same deployment
- Monster still overtuned though.
Encounter 8 (redo with init 2)
Init - Same as previous, replace melee fighter with ranged
- Party gets a lot of lucky crits (and crest-eaters don't), combined with 3 hero point expenditures, healer's gloves and blocking they manage to get a win here
- Probably <50% win rate
----------------------------------------------------------------
You and EarthSeraphEdna are insane. How do you have time to do these?
Anyway, my only criticism of your setup is that just sending in one aeon guard is kind of lame. So much of their kit depends on being able to gang up on targets. It makes sense that they'd be pretty miserable flying solo. I definitely agree that guns need some kind of damage booster, though. Maybe a dex version of propulsive?
I think feeling locked into the same routine every round is s valid concern for soldiers and envoys, but I'm also curious if part of the problem is having one person control 4 PCs. Edna has a very specific style of play, you know?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You and EarthSeraphEdna are insane. How do you have time to do these?
We're both fairly experienced with PF2e and don't have to stop to look up rules, combined with these being straight combats (no RP or anything), it takes ~4 hours to get through 8 combats. Overall ~12 hours, just blocked out my weeknights for 3 days to do it.
Anyway, my only criticism of your setup is that just sending in one aeon guard is kind of lame. So much of their kit depends on being able to gang up on targets. It makes sense that they'd be pretty miserable flying solo. I definitely agree that guns need some kind of damage booster, though. Maybe a dex version of propulsive?
In both situations the Aeon Guards were paired up with other enemies - Corpse Fleets, the Serpent + 2nd Aeon Guard.
The issue is that the Aeon Guard doesn't do anything alone due to their incredibly low damage, so once the other enemies are dealt with, the Aeon Guard is essentially a non entity.
Yes I agree, even half-dex to ranged damage as a general rule would help immensely, if only to reduce the swinginess at low levels.
The difference between d8+4, high vs low, is about 2.4x the damage (5 vs 12)
The difference with guns, using d6 or d10 can be 6 or 10x the damage. Changing that range to 3-8 or 3-12 would help a lot, and make any rolls of a 1 feel less wasted.
I think feeling locked into the same routine every round is s valid concern for soldiers and envoys, but I'm also curious if part of the problem is having one person control 4 PCs. Edna has a very specific style of play, you know?
It's true, there's no reason to really change the playstyle if its winning encounters, but also looking back at what options the Envoy and Soldier have available to them, I don't think there's any actions they could be taking that would be the same or more effective than using their main damage booster every round. Certainly nothing that would have helped them be more effective in the encounters in which they were struggling.