I got to say i am massively impressed with everything in the Playtest. However after reading Solarian I had a couple quick thoughts on what could be improved immedately. This is fully based upon my play style.
Solar Nimbus
- Reaction at level 1 feels incredibly weak
- Solar Shield level 1 feat feels like a much better use of your actions
- Why does Empowered Nimbus need to be a feat and not rolled into the Nimbus Reaction at character creation?
Solar Flare
- Very fun concept but this is why I feel Solarian should be Strength or Dexterity based for KAS.
Twin Weapons
- With the above change to Solarian allow me to Manifest a Finesse weapon even at the cost of going to d6 as the weapon die.
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I've been digesting things a bit and mulling over a few design elements here but I've got some thoughts to add:
Solar Nimbus
Feels a little over balanced here. Neither option feels equivalent to another class's reaction on its own and I think the cause is the dual nature of the reaction. The writers probably did not want to give the Solarian two different reactions of power equal to, say, Reactive Strike for the price of one. I kind of agree with them but I think they were shooting for about half the utility when I think they should shoot for about 75%.
Alternately, rolling Stellar Nimbus into the initial ability might shore up the ability enough.
Solar Flare
Everything I've seen says the intent was to give the Solarian what amounts to a baked in pistol so they could engage at range while closing distance with the enemy. It was supposed to be sort of an 'off-hand' weapon. However, people are going to want to specialize in it and expanding its functionality is going to be an easy source of class feats for later content.
Making it fully strength-based might be one option but one that many would be justifiably wary of. I'd suggest dropping the damage die down a peg to compensate. An alternative would be to change the nature of the attack entirely and have it function more like Ostilli Host's Spit Ambient Magic or a Wand Thaumaturge's Fling Magic and force the enemy to make a reflex save against your class DC.
Finesse Weapons
Failing any of the above, full dex support for Solarian might be the way to go.
Flight
I'd really like to see flight as a class feat as opposed to being tied to one specific Solar Arrangement. It disincentivizes ancestries with their own flight options from taking that Solar Arrangement.
Solar Flare successfully specifies that you add your strength to damage it even though it's a ranged attack!... But it doesn't specify that you add it to the attack roll. Unless there's some obscure rule I'm missing, normally ranged strikes use dex unless they're thrown or otherwise specified to use something else. If Solar Flare is supposed to: Specify. If it isn't: Why not? I thought the point of making it add your strength was to make Solarian more SAD so it can choose whether it wants to branch into higher dex for AC or higher con for durability (or both for super consistency). Having their most consistent vaguely ranged option be dex-based would incentivise a dex secondary more than it should in my opinion. But then again, there could be some design implication I'm missing.
Solar Flare and the related action Solar Shot as written has several issues as I see it.
I agree the dexterity reliance means the class is going to want to be Str and Dex heavy in order to use it, which limits build possibilities unfortunately.
I'll note it is clearly intended to be a thrown weapon replacement, since thrown weapon ranged strikes in 2e use dexterity to hit and strength to damage. So it is definitely dex based.
However, that at least can built towards with only 1 point accuracy difference between melee and ranged. The bigger issue is I see no way to get item bonus to hit (i.e. potency runes) on Solar Shot right now. As you get to higher levels, it is going to fall behind your melee options significantly, and even fall behind an actual offhand throwing weapon with the returning rune in terms of accuracy. At low level the difference might not be that great (+7 with +4 Strength for a Solar Weapon, +6 with Solar Shot with +3 Dexterity at 1st). But even by 2nd level, with +1 Solarian Weapon crystal, there's already a +2 gap (+9 vs +7). By 20th, as written assuming you maximize both (+6 Strength/+5 Dexterity), its +37 with Solar Weapon vs +31 with Solar Shot. And if you don't invest in Dex because you want a less agile Solarian build (say you want Str/Con/Int/Wis), then you really need to ignore it as an option.
On the bright side you can just ignore it, and just have low or average dexterity, but that basically eliminates Balanced Arrangement as a reasonable choice since Binarhic Assault uses Solar Shot. Its potentially a trap option, since some combinations of stats and levels will leave the character better off simply using the basic Strike action twice with the Solar Weapon instead of using Binarhic Assault.
Essentially, Solar Flare needs to scale with Solarian Weapon Crystals if we want to make it a main part of the class.
Twin Weapon feels like it might be good if there was some other support for the two weapon style in the base class. Right now, there really isn't (Twin Guard isn't offensive, and uses once again the one reaction per turn). Fighters get Double Slice for example, and would be the obvious dedication dip if you do go Twin Weapon. And if you're not going to be using Solarian feats to take advantage of it offensively, one might argue you could just buy an offhand agile weapon. Credits in exchange for a saved feat.
On the topic of Nimbus vs Solar Shield and reactions, I'll point out Solar Shield in photonic mode potentially does literally nothing on reaction use, so you're back to Nimbus for your being hit reaction in a lot of cases. Without hardness, photon attunement Solar Shield doesn't prevent any damage, and if the damage isn't high enough to shatter it in one go, the reaction merely lowers the counter until your shield breaks.
Potentially you are using multiple reactions to once per combat get a 5 foot AoE centered on the character that allows a save against having a 25% miss chance (or critical fail blind). If you're in the right attunement at the right times, you could be graviton on the initial damage hits, and photon at just the right momement, but there's a lot of variance in damage dice, and a lot of potentially inefficient attunement/cycle actions to do so.
Simply sitting in graviton Solar Shield is better as it actually gets a hardness, but its pretty low compared to actual physical shields. Or even the shield cantrip. You essentially have to spend like 3 feats (Solar Shield, Empowered Nimbus, and Nimbus Block) to eventually get to a reasonable level of resistance versus physical damage types. Up until you run out of shield HP (which is only 17 hp at level 6, with hardness 3). Compare that to a Tactical Carbon shield around that level with hardness 8 and 66 HP and 33 break threshold. While also providing twice the circumstance bonus for simply raising it (+2 vs +1). That is again, comparing 3 class feats in Graviton mode, to a single item that works all the time, at the cost of a hand.
There's an argument to be made that instead of spending 3 class feats on Solar Shield, that you grab a caster dedication and get the Shield Cantrip (and some actual low level spells along with it). At least for the 1 shield block reaction per fight you use it on, you'll get significantly more damage reduction (5 vs 1 at 1st, 10 vs 3 at 5th, 15 vs 9 at 9th, 20 vs 13 at 13th, 25 vs 17 at 17th), and it doesn't care which attunement you are in.
I just feel like multiple class feats put into something which might go away mid-fight (and in fact is designed to go away mid-fight), feels like it might be a trap option. Nimbus is at least always usable for the entire fight and really only needs 1 feat to make the reaction start to be helpful (damage reduction and push isn't terrible for graviton). I do agree rolling Empowered Nimbus into baseline would help make it feel meaningful even in the case of a passed fortitude save.
About Flight, I do like the idea of flight being a feat choice with different benefits in the two attunements. A solar wind version versus a gravity pulling one. That at least that means you don't immediately fall down when use Black Hole while flying. Putting it in only one attunement, with the class clearly built around cycling attunement means you're going to need another flight solution anyways so you don't plummet just for using your class abilities.
And I think that's one the biggest issues right now with the feats and class abilities that feel sub-par. Solarian feels like its built around restricting the character, rather then empowering the character. You must use Solar Weapon to use your abilities, as opposed to being an option in addition to normal weapons everyone else uses. Balanced Arrangement and Binahric Attunement requiring dexterity as your 2nd highest stat to mechanically make sense. And it doesn't even provide protection for the Solar Shot triggering Reactive Strike when you are forced to be in melee to use it.
The attunement action is like needing to reload on a melee class. Used Shattering Impact? Need to spend an action reloading your attunement. Used your 15th level Singularity? Welp, need to reload the following turn after that full 3 action ability. And hope you didn't actually kill the boss, otherwise no loot drop for you. Also, don't use it while using your 9th level ability, or else you fall and take damage.
I'd like the Solarian to feel like it flows smoothly between using different abilities and different attunements, and not have abilities simply hard stop. Defy Gravity and Solar Wind should just be always active as long as you are attuned, irregardless of attunement. Maybe less effective, but they shouldn't shut off completely. But mid- to high level play with Solarian right now is looking like it isn't going to play smoothly.
I would like to add after reading Solar Shield that the Solarian Preview really over-hyped this ability. I was expecting a normal shield I could use as part of my kit that I can raise and lower much like the Shield Cantrip. In fact Solar Shield would be vastly improved if it had the same statistics/text as the Shield Cantrip.
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I was looking for a way to add more damage dice to Solar weapon, it doesn't look to scale within the power (like Elemental Blast) and no way to add runes.I got to say i am massively impressed with everything in the Playtest. However after reading Solarian I had a couple quick thoughts on what could be improved immedately. This is fully based upon my play style.
Solar Nimbus
- Reaction at level 1 feels incredibly weak
- Solar Shield level 1 feat feels like a much better use of your actions
- Why does Empowered Nimbus need to be a feat and not rolled into the Nimbus Reaction at character creation?Solar Flare
- Very fun concept but this is why I feel Solarian should be Strength or Dexterity based for KAS.Twin Weapons
- With the above change to Solarian allow me to Manifest a Finesse weapon even at the cost of going to d6 as the weapon die.
See Solarion crystals on page 194.