This thread exists because I want to talk about the Singing Coil but a single comment about one weapon isn't worth its own thread so throw your other weapon design comments here too
The Singing Coil's description makes note of people playing it with a nano-edge rapier instead of a bow. This is notably sick as f!*@ but there isn't actually any way to do this since the singing coil is (understandably) a 2-handed weapon. I'm not sure how exactly this should be enabled but it definitely should be!
Wanna say that I love the idea of Profession weapons, trait is perfect as is, please add this trait to Pathfinder too.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well obviously you're going to want to use a four-armed character (runs and hides)
Well obviously you're going to want to use a four-armed character (runs and hides)
You can't say that to me.
(Thanks for the laugh)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
We're making characters for Cosmic Birthday this weekend and so far my biggest concern is the cost of ammo starting off. Legitimately worried about the Mystic having 5 shots in their pocket and the Soldier only being able to afford one clip. Maybe two if they sacrifice some other non-essential gear. Feels rough in the ranged meta game that ammo is actually more expensive than Pathfinder.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why does 'Automatic' cause a weapon to be ... so short-ranged? I understand not wanting the cone to extend to the full first range increment, but must it cause me to have problems past ten yards with regular aimed shots?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think most weapons seem worse than PF2e ones because they are balanced around the fact that you don't have to reload as much when using them. However, I still think they are bit undertuned though.
Why is the Crossbolter bow group when it is, nominally, a crossbow? Remaster made those separate weapon groups with separate crit specs.
Then this might mean they need to reread the Remastered Player Core 1 & 2. However 1 SP for a bullet isn't exactly that bad long term, at lower levels maybe but at higher levels bullets are dirt cheaper. However all of the guns just feel underhwleming, as if Paizo was scared of them.This makes me almost want to use a Long-bow, not even joking or a Suk-gung with 200ft range which is absurd no single bullet sniper hits this, or the 120ft the Arbalest does!
Let's talk about lack of traits on many weapons... and the Professional Trait not being it's own type of weapon chart.
Why is space-age gun worse than crossbow?
You're gonna need to qualify that assertion.
The text on grenades states that the crit fail effects occur if you "apply the critical specialization effect of grenades", but how do you determine whether you do or not? Grenades aren't simple or martial weapons, and aren't part of a weapon group besides maybe "grenade." Or are you only supposed to be able to apply crit spec on them when fired out of a grenade launcher which is a martial weapon? Also, none of the currently printed missiles have a crit spec effect.
Advanced Bipod is kind of a downgrade from Tactical but not really? Tactical says that you can retrieve it as a free action and doesn't mention a frequency, while with Advanced puts a strict once-per-round frequency on how often can either deploy and retrieve it as a free action. I understand the idea kind of, but it still feels strange that there's something a lesser version could do that the better version can't. Maybe pur a frequency on the Tactical version as well?
Since I already had the first edition core book out I had a look at ammunition costs. Small arms bullets used to cost 40 credits for 30 rounds, longarm was 75 credits per 25 rounds, and heavy weapons ammo was 90 credits per 20 rounds - yeah, first edition pistols and cannons used different ammunition. Obviously that doesn't tell you much oh its own since the worth of a credit has changed. In first edition you'd start with 1000 credits. At 3 credits per shot, firing a longarm once will cost you 0.3% of your starting wealth. A level 1 rifle cost 240 to 425 credits. Hunting rifle and 25 rounds of ammunition costs 265 credits, laser rifle with an extra 20 charge battery costs 485, less than half your starting money.
You now start with 150 credits. A simple rifle costs 60 credits, plus 10 for 10 rounds of ammunition is still less than half your starting wealth but if you want to shoot more than ten shots it's going to get expensive fast. 1 credit out of 150 is proportionately twice as expensive as 3 credits out of 1000. Even at heavy weapons rates reloading a playtest weapon costs 50% more of a character's starting money than in 1e.
On battery sizes, I've said this before in another thread and I'll say it again here. Escalating battery sizes made sense in the table gore of first edition. Advanced energy weapons would use more charges per shot, forcing you to buy expensive high level batteries in order to keep shooting as long before reloading. An Azimuth artillery laser held a 20 charge battery and used 2 charges per shot. The Aphelion artillery laser held a 40 charge battery and used 4 charges per shot. Battery costs were also nonlinear, unlike the playtest. A playtest 20 charge battery costs only twice as much as a 10 charge battery. A first edition 40 charge battery cost five times as much as a 20 charge battery, because getting more shots before losing an action to reload is priceless in combat.
Grenade Launchers have no upgrade slots, so you'd have no way to install a Fireburst Chamber in one. I know that specific beats general but not this hard. That is unless we're supposed to assume that they follow the upgrade slot advancement of normal weapon improvements, but that doesn't make sense either for multiple reasons, notably that this means it could take any weapon mod a martial ranged weapon could, which would lead to all kinds of jank.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Grenades are simple weapons because they are intended to be used by everyone. That's all there is to it.
Grenade training at army basic training is "hold it this one weird way, chuck it straight forward, not like a baseball, that you'll never actually do again, then duck behind this prepared dirt wall while it goes off in a pit. Congratulations, you're trained." The one weapon I felt like they made me worse at using.
A cross-compatibility issue with the melee weapons is that if you're using archaic Pathfinder weapons they are... often times going to be better than scifi weapons because the Unwieldy trait only exists in Starfinder. A doshko is a greataxe that you can only hit with once per round. Not sure what to do with that other than to simply say not to use Pathfinder weapons.
Some weapons feel rather underwhelming for me in general, in large part because they ALL have a level 1 version that needs to scale from there. Missiles being a big one. I get wanting to balance them but why not just make them high level items? Are players really gonna be demanding access to missiles in low-level play? It feels to me like something that'd be very reasonable to lock to higher levels, rather than making the damage of their explosions so underwhelming. I mean a 20th level missile does FIVE damage to anyone who isn't the direct target, that feels really weird and if I gave my players a missile launcher I think they'd expect something much more destructive.
Plasma swords are also pretty disappointing given the really cool crit stuff they had in 1e. That's another type of weapon I think most players would be fine with restricting to being "high level gear" if it meant they can be chopping off limbs instead of mildly shocking someone with what's basically a lightsaber.
Some weapons feel rather underwhelming for me in general, in large part because they ALL have a level 1 version that needs to scale from there. Missiles being a big one. I get wanting to balance them but why not just make them high level items? Are players really gonna be demanding access to missiles in low-level play? It feels to me like something that'd be very reasonable to lock to higher levels, rather than making the damage of their explosions so underwhelming. I mean a 20th level missile does FIVE damage to anyone who isn't the direct target, that feels really weird and if I gave my players a missile launcher I think they'd expect something much more destructive.
Plasma swords are also pretty disappointing given the really cool crit stuff they had in 1e. That's another type of weapon I think most players would be fine with restricting to being "high level gear" if it meant they can be chopping off limbs instead of mildly shocking someone with what's basically a lightsaber.
Like, the 20th level ballistic missile in the 2e playtest is significantly less powerful than the 10th level tactical missile from 1e.
most unwieldy weapon need boost 1d6 or 1d8 to be worth using
hope paizo really put some effort in rework boost trait
and give them to melee weapon too
slowly charging mega hit would be great for roleplay too
Oooh I'd love a martial Horizon Thunder Sphere
They could do a thunder hammer for a melee boost weapon.
Why can't Auto-fire target a cone or a line?
I feel weapon design is all over the place. I feel the weapons do need to be fixed in some way because of the following statements. I will say flavor wise I love the weapons but some of them need help in my opinion.
Acid Dart Rifle - 90ft 1d8 Acid, 2 hands, Magazine 5, Expend 1. Analog
Why is this on par with the Daikyo, an Advanced Bow from Pathfinder 2E without the Deadly trait? Also it deals probably one of the better energy type damagews, Acid.
Arc Pistol - 30ft, 1d3 Electricity, 1 hand, Charge 10, Expend 2, Arc, Tech
The Arc pistol deals less damage then other pistols, deals it in electricity which is nice but why does it have such a short range in a range meta game> The Arc trait isn't very useful it's 1 point of damage per weapon die to a secondary target within 10ft, well that's fun in theory that's practically nothing. It also has the Tech trait meaning it can be hacked.
I would like to know the design behind why many pistols are only 30ft barely more then what a standard dexterity based character can stride in a turn. Are Pistols really that much better then to use over melee weapon? Is the energy damage really that important that they have low range or am I just over thinking this?
Semi-auto pistol is straight up better than a hand crossbow. Identical statline except that you have to reload the hand crossbow after every shot instead of every five shots.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Grenades just seem actually terrible when you think about them from the perspective of "this is a grenade", not "this is a PF2e simple thrown weapon". A flat 1d8 damage isn't enough to kill ANYTHING, and when I get out a scifi grenade I expect it to be able to kill chaff enemies at the very least! Plus I'm paying a not insubstantial amount of money for it that I could instead be investing into my horribly overpriced gun ammo.
I just don't really see any character ever going out there and buying grenades. Finding grenades as loot, sure. But they just don't warrant the price point?
Especially since they are likely to eat your entire turn. Action 0: drop one hand off of your gun. Action 1: pull out the grenade. Action 2: throw grenade, watch it do nothing. Action 3: pick up your gun with both hands again.
Also, Soldiers interact very poorly with them? Since the main Soldier feature, primary target, doesn't work with grenades nor grenade launchers, and with missile launchers the extra ammo cost is terrible!
I feel grenades would work a lot better if the ones that dealt damage had a delay of 1 round, in exchange for much more damage. Instant bombs should be fine too, but the advantage to a delayed grenade is that it'd be a great tool for flushing enemies out of cover, which I think right now is fairly important given how easy it is for enemies to hide behind it all the time. If the enemy doesn't move, or is made to stay for some reason, then the much higher damage ought to frag them for sure, if they're chaff.
We're making characters for Cosmic Birthday this weekend and so far my biggest concern is the cost of ammo starting off. Legitimately worried about the Mystic having 5 shots in their pocket and the Soldier only being able to afford one clip. Maybe two if they sacrifice some other non-essential gear. Feels rough in the ranged meta game that ammo is actually more expensive than Pathfinder.
When I was working on some character this does look maybe problematic. If you want medium armor and a weapon soldiers can buy 1-2 clips worth of extra rounds and that is going without even things like a tent just real basic weapon armor some ammo and maybe a com unit or some other real cheap item. I would be VERY hesitant at low levels starting off using automatic weapons. I think battery powered things at least a bit better because there are some spells/abilities that can recharge some battery power.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Having a look at the melee weapons. Pathfinder has a mature melee weapon ecosystem so there's going to be a lot of room for comparison.
Simple:
Baton: 1d6 Finesse and parry with one hand. Interesting. Pathfinder doesn't have any 1d6 one-handed finesse weapons. And the only Pathfinder one-handed weapon with both Finesse and Parry at 1d6 is the martial Exquisite Sword Cane.
Battleglove: Renamed gauntlet.
Knife: Renamed dagger
Puzzleblade: 1d8 on a 2-hander with questionably useful trait. Damage is fine for a simple two-hander.
Shock Pad: 1d6 with free hand. Nice.
Zero Knife: A knife you can't throw, but it does cold damage. Yay?
Martial:
Aucturnite Chakram: Comparable to a trident with a shorter throwing range. In return your critical specialization effect is stupefied 1 instead of clumsy 1.
Battle Ribbon: One-handed reach is rare and valuable. Add finesse and trip and no wonder it's only 1d4. But when you compare to archaic weapons the Scorpion Whip and Thorn Whip both do the same thing plus disarm.
Bone Scepter: 1d10 on a one-hander. Remarkable even without powerful traits.
Cryopike: 1d10 two-hander with reach. No particular traits aside from doing cold damage. Normal damage for a polearm, though a few come with addtional traits like trip or disarm with the same damage.
Doshko: Has been discussed before. Questionable whether parry is worth unwieldy.
Dueling Sword: Renamed longsword
Fangblade: 1d10 two-hander with backswing, like a greatclub without Shove
Force Needle: Only 1d4 damage, but that's a lot of traits (backstabber, concealable, injection, thrown 20. Doesn't have Finesse), and two more upgrade slots than usual. That could be breakable.
Hammer: Like a warhammer that takes up two hands. Seems fine as a simple weapon.
Nano-edge Rapier: Renamed rapier.
Neural Lash: A weird weapon. Telepaths treat it as simple and can selectively ignore nonlethal and unwieldy. 1d8 in one hand is unremarkable for a martial, but high for simple.
Painglaive: 1d10 with reach. You could just get a guisarme. Archaic guisarmes have trip, don't need batteries, and are immune to glitching.
Phase Cutlass: 1d6 is a little low for a martial weapon without significant traits. Being able to switch to void damage seems to be counting for a lot.
Plasma Doshko: 1d10 two-hander with sweep, like a greataxe that does less damage. But it's fire damage, so I guess that's worth more. Is this a carryover from 1e where energy weapons did less damage to balance out how they're rolling against the generally lower EAC?
Plasma Sword: 1d8 one-hander with no traits beyond the damage type.
Polyglove: Couldn't you just use a Shock Pad, and shouldn't this have Free Hand too?
Pulse Gauntlet: Gauntlet that does sonic damage
Shock Truncheon: 1d6 one-hander with the interesting modular (arc or nonlethal) trait.
Shooting Starknife: It's a starknife
Singing Spear: 1d6 two-hander. Besides damage type and crit spec the only trait is thrown 20. Is this really supposed to be two-handed for that damage? Aside from the damage type being sonic this is just a trident that does less damage and takes two hands.
Tailblade: 1d4 agile finesse free hand, implicitly requires a tail. Nice gimmick.
Talon: 1d6 one-hander with versatile damage. Another case of energy damage being valued as worth a die size. A versatile physical martial one-hander would do 1d8.
A few gems in there, but a lot of these are a little on the weak side.
Fire is the most resisted type of Energy in Pathfinder 2E so there is a point to be made that it is worth using over Physical damage. Since the moment you fight a Fire Elemental your Fire weapons become inert which is a big problem. The other Energy types are much harder to stop and the fact there is Sonic weapons should be a massive no brainer, hardly anything resists Sonic Damage.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's kind of striking how many of the martial melee weapons legitimately feel like they're missing traits.
Actually, just caught my eye since they're all right next to each other, the Phase Cutlass, Plasma Doshko, and Plasma Sword all feel like they're underbudgeted. It almost feels like someone thought Powered was a positive trait rather than a negative one.
It's kind of striking how many of the martial melee weapons legitimately feel like they're missing traits.
Actually, just caught my eye since they're all right next to each other, the Phase Cutlass, Plasma Doshko, and Plasma Sword all feel like they're underbudgeted. It almost feels like someone thought Powered was a positive trait rather than a negative one.
I think it might be more that fire damage is seen as an upside, though I can't imagine why.
I think it might be more that fire damage is seen as an upside, though I can't imagine why.It's kind of striking how many of the martial melee weapons legitimately feel like they're missing traits.
Actually, just caught my eye since they're all right next to each other, the Phase Cutlass, Plasma Doshko, and Plasma Sword all feel like they're underbudgeted. It almost feels like someone thought Powered was a positive trait rather than a negative one.
I tell you,Energy damage is over valued in design.
I do find a lot of the weapon balancing quite strange. Energy damage seems to be valued extremely high when in my opinion it's neutral overall, given that it's more likely to trigger both weaknesses and immunities compared to physical damage. A lot of melee weapons are flat-out underpowered, and the balance of guns is all over the place. As someone else has just set up a thread to discuss, the unwieldy trait really doesn't seem to have a place in 2e, and overall it feels like in the endeavor to innovate and carry over lots of mechanics from 1e, a lot of what we got either needs a bit more translation to be eased in, or just doesn't fit.