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So . . . Hair trigger. Ranged opportunity attack at a range of up to 120 feet.
Is it broken?
I want to hear your thoughts.
I think it is. And if you don't, I want you to picture a scenario.
Let's say your party of level 5 Starfinders gets into a fight with four randos. By some miricle, your mystic goes first. They decided to cast a spell to fireball them. They all shoot you from 100 feet away for (checks average damage) 2d6+5 damage each with high accuracy. That's 8d6+20 damage, with a high chance for one of them to crit you disrupting your spell. Remember, if it is a feat a class can get, then it is fair game for NPCs to get it too. There are plenty of examples of enemy NPCs having abilities that correspond to player feats.
Actually? Y'know what, you don't have to imagine that. Paizo already put that monster out. Have you fought against them? I know me and my group hated it. Try to run away? Get shot. Try to get up into melee? Get shot. Try to shoot them? Get shot. Try to DRAW YOUR WEAPON? Get shot.
And those guys had guns that had to be reloaded after every shot and only had a range of 30 feet. Now imagine a range of 60 feet, and they only have to reload after every 5 shots.
Also, it's just a normal operative feat, so, assuming the operative multiclass follows the standard guideline ANYONE can get this ability at level 5 if they have a dex of +2 or better.
Not only is this busted, it's going to bog down combat. Just imagine EVERYONE shooting EVERY time this happens. Turn starts. Enemy operative tries to move. You shot him? He shoots you back. He shot you back? Your friend decides to shoot him.
I'm trying to police myself. I don't want to just have a knee-jerk reaction to an ability . . . but this one is pretty hard to justify.
I just . . . I love this game, but paizo, if you want some feedback, I don't see this feat ending well for you.
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Reactive Strike is one of the best feats in PF2e, and Hair Trigger is literally that but threatening the whole battlefield. If the operative is meant to be an striker more or less similar to fighter, I think it should become a baseline feature for all operatives and not a feat (and so should Keep Them in Your Sights and Devastating Aim, otherwise they become feat taxes). And even then I would probably suggest to nerf it to something closer to Opportune Riposte.
So you want it to become Gunslinger's Return fire, fair point but once a round it's not that bad because of some guns. Pistols won't make it busted, Sniper rifles make it incompatible, so you have rifles that may pose a problem but my DM doesn't think it is overpowered in any way and so far he is a very reasonable man. Multiple enemies just makes it more difficlt to choose who to shoot with it and it also burns ammo.
Just give everyone a 60' step and it'll be fine.
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Put me in the camp of "it's strong, but limited." Primarily by ammunition supply, which is not a consideration of the PF2 fighter reach builds with Reactive Strike, and most weapon ranges.
The operative with Hair Trigger will need to be judicious about when to use the reaction or they will risk running out of shots. Also, unless I missed it, an operative can't reload until its their turn... Multiple minions to soak up the operative's bullets/charges and then the BBEG moves while the operative has no shots to use for Hair Trigger until they can reload.
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Put me in the camp of "it's strong, but limited." Primarily by ammunition supply, which is not a consideration of the PF2 fighter reach builds with Reactive Strike, and most weapon ranges.
The operative with Hair Trigger will need to be judicious about when to use the reaction or they will risk running out of shots. Also, unless I missed it, an operative can't reload until its their turn... Multiple minions to soak up the operative's bullets/charges and then the BBEG moves while the operative has no shots to use for Hair Trigger until they can reload.
Unless you’re stacking Hypernerves, you only have 1 reaction per round until you’re level 20 and you don’t have to use it on a mook. You can simply hold a reaction and that bullet for the BBEG if you so wish.
Also if running out of ammo, you can just switch to a battery weapon like the laser rifle which will have effectively infinite ammo with a large enough battery.
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I think comparing it to the Justice Champion/Paladin's Eetribuitive Strike or Thaumaturge's Implements Interuption is more fitting. All three can be used at range, but...
Retribuitive Strike requires a feat to be used at ranged and only has 15 feet without an aura expansion. It also has a much narrower trigger that an adversary can easily avoid by choosing to attack the champion
Implement's interuption requires the thaumaturge to mark a target with an action that only has two action compression features, one of which is level 19. It also has a range of only 10 feet and triggers on concentrate actions instead of ramged attacks, although it does have the nice niche of disrupting Any action that triggers it.
If I had to tweak Hair Trigger, I'd require the Operative to have marked someone to trigger the reaction, and reduce the range to 15 feet. That would make it feel much more like a quick draw focused on your primary target. I might also add a longer ranged reaction at higher levels for an overwatch function, but it probably would have stricter requirements and would not disrupt actions.
I agree it has to be nerfed, but 15 feet for a ranged focused game is the same as nothing. Specially for a class that is made to stay at range. That's why I think ranged Opportune Riposte would be way more approipiate (its not like people would be bothered, most people think Opportune Riposte is a weak feature anyways).
If you make hair trigger like Opportune Riposte that would make Kill Steal even better because honestly hope often are enemies crit failing their attack roll. Not to mention with a Soldier in the party or a Kineticist, Kill Steal would/should be extremely easy to trigger every turn.
I agree it has to be nerfed, but 15 feet for a ranged focused game is the same as nothing. Specially for a class that is made to stay at range. That's why I think ranged Opportune Riposte would be way more approipiate (its not like people would be bothered, most people think Opportune Riposte is a weak feature anyways).
The skirmisher operative is not a long ranged character, though. Everything about the specialization is screaming close range Gun Kata. The feat is primarily for that specialization and should support it. Extending the range nerfs the feat's potential too much. Like I said, a long range version of the feat for a sniper on overwatch should probably be included as well, but trying to fit both mechanics into one is going to result in the feat failing to fulfill either fantasy.
Then it should be an effect just for skirmisher operatives, not a feat that everyone can take, because otherwise everyone will take it. That's why I'm kinda leaning more towards nerfing it and make it a feature for all operatives rather than a feat tax. If Reactive Strike is 6th level feat, Hair Trigger in its current state shouldn't be lower than 10th.
Then it should be an effect just for skirmisher operatives, not a feat that everyone can take, because otherwise everyone will take it. That's why I'm kinda leaning more towards nerfing it and make it a feature for all operatives rather than a feat tax. If Reactive Strike is 6th level feat, Hair Trigger in its current state shouldn't be lower than 10th.
Why would a vanilla sniper take a the feat in my proposed nerfed state? By your own admission, they don't want to be at that range. On the other hand, a striker operative running with a knife and a gun could still get good use out of it, so the feat needn't be limited to just skirmishers.
I think it would make sense and be balanced to only trigger on movement t punish people moving into/out of cover and melee advancing. Shooting and casting spells is too much to earn extra damage and risk being disrupted.
The other reactions are also great, and I want to leave a reason to take them.
Could make it so you can only use it against a target you had Aimed at on your previous turn.
It's still very strong, but at least it be more limited. Kind of.
This is probably the best way to nerf Hair Trigger I have seen on the forum. Make it only effect your aimed target, simple, makes it only useful on a single target and it'snot like you can hi any other creature.
Would it be more balanced if you to9ok away the manipulate action si disrupted on a crit?
I have said it before here. I think the "ranged attack" trigger is too much (it also makes feats Deflection fire and kill steal etc less interesting). Remove that and the feat more balanced. Maybe raise the lvl to 6+.
Yeah I know caster can still be targeted but thats a price they pay for standing in the open and casting damn spells.
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So, "broken" often is used as shorthand for something that's overpowered, but in this case I do think Hair Trigger is broken not simply because it is overpowered, but because it actually breaks the gameplay for reactions.
In general, reactions in 2e are meant to be conditional. You are not supposed to use your reaction every turn, and so reactions are generally designed along a sliding scale of trigger specificity versus range: some reactions can trigger from a lot of different or common actions, like Reactive Strike, but are held back by a short range, so you usually have to spend actions setting yourself up to be able to use that reaction. Others can trigger from a long range, like Counterspell, but have such specific trigger conditions that you'll be very unlikely to be using those reactions all the time. In all cases, for any given reaction, it's quite possible you'll only use that reaction once in a combat encounter, or even not at all.
Not Hair Trigger, though. Hair Trigger has all the broad trigger conditions of Reactive Strike (it's effectively a copy-paste of the feat), but has the range of a ranged weapon, which can go as far as 100 feet -- effectively the entire battlefield. Because everyone will be using manipulate actions to shoot their own guns, and because those not shooting guns will generally be moving to get closer to you, you can effectively guarantee that you'll be able to use this feat every turn, with no setup or additional effort required. It is, effectively, not a real reaction, so much as a free, MAP-less extra attack each round that costs a reaction to use, and that's what makes it broken. It is one of many instances in SF2e of mechanics that add power without gameplay, and I think the way forward ought to be to make its trigger conditions far more specific.
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In general, reactions in 2e are meant to be conditional. You are not supposed to use your reaction every turn, and so reactions are generally designed along a sliding scale of trigger specificity versus range: some reactions can trigger from a lot of different or common actions, like Reactive Strike, but are held back by a short range, so you usually have to spend actions setting yourself up to be able to use that reaction.
Forcing them to trigger is generally how melee characters scale damage into the later levels where tons of monsters start getting anti-melee mechanics, there are also some reactions that have very easy triggers (e.g. multiple people having retributive strike, opportune backstab, tag team, target of opportunity, etc.) which tend to be most commonly used for this purpose.
SF reaction attack feats are a bit more powerful in the sense that their triggers are extremely easy. Overwatch is basically just Hair Trigger on suppressed targets - if you have Bombard you're almost always going to have suppressed targets, and the things you just used Area Fire on are generally the ones you want to reaction attack anyway. That'll Show Em is level 12, but triggers if an ally gets attacked at all.
The only one lacking an easy reaction attack is, ironically enough, the melee character - Solarian - which needs to set up reactive strike with Graviton attunement.
I was about to say that overwatch is Hair trigger but for suppressed enemies. BUT Overwatch allows the use UNWIELDY weapons. These weapons deal the most damage and tend to have the longest reach.
I wasn't aware of the That'll show em existance but its very useful reaction. So u make good points. SF2 has strong reactions across the board
After reading some of the reactions I am starting to believe something. I think Paizo is making them strong because they expect people to take them to help even out their damage over melee characters since we all know ranged in generally weaker then melee. Is it a bad design choice, em, it really is a toss up rather this is good or not.
Also the Champions Reaction is something you want to try to spam every turn. The Justice Champion is very strong, 15ft aura, enemy, you and an ally, enemy targets ally, reduce damage by 2+Level AND get a free attack at 0 MAP. As a Paladin Champion before Player Core 2, I was triggering this pretty much at a 80% (1 in 5 turn I wasn't roughly) up time status.
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After reading some of the reactions I am starting to believe something. I think Paizo is making them strong because they expect people to take them to help even out their damage over melee characters since we all know ranged in generally weaker then melee. Is it a bad design choice, em, it really is a toss up rather this is good or not.
Also the Champions Reaction is something you want to try to spam every turn. The Justice Champion is very strong, 15ft aura, enemy, you and an ally, enemy targets ally, reduce damage by 2+Level AND get a free attack at 0 MAP. As a Paladin Champion before Player Core 2, I was triggering this pretty much at a 80% (1 in 5 turn I wasn't roughly) up time status.
I think Paizo has done a good job buffing ranged attacks already. Soldier can hit everyone in a cone, then then one person 2 more times, with a total of save, then -5/-5 to hit. That's a lot of bullets.
Operative's aim does up to +4d4 damage with two shots a round (3 if hasted) with legendary accuracy so . . . crits likely to happen.
And all of that stacks with the envoy who can get 'em, which scales up damage as they level.
Again, imagine you, as a primal mystic, decide to cast a fireball on the first round of combat, and get shot 4 times in the face by snipers who are 100 feet away, who all have hair trigger, one of them crits, downs you, and you loose your spell anyway.
As someone somewhere already mentioned, I think its likely all the busted stuff was made like that on purpose so Paizo could see how much ranged would be above melee with these changes for then balance stuff more appropiately. Its not even the first time Paizo releases an overtuned class in playtest format for then tweak it appropiately on release (thaumaturges had a feat that granted them a flat +2 to attack rolls iirc).
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fwiw, I'd like to see the conditions on hair trigger narrowed rather than the ranged reduced.
A gunner or sniper having some kind of overwatch capabilities with a reaction attack feels thematically on brand, but having hair trigger work just like reactive strike makes it far too easy to trigger. Right now it's even easier to get off than a champion reaction and those are designed to be easy to activate as a class mechanic.
Using a Seeker Rifle (Range 120ft.; 1d10 P) and a bit of luck on initiative and attack rolls
While I don't think it changes your overall point about hair trigger, it's worth noting the seeker rifle is overtuned and we have commentary from a developer that it's supposed to have a mag size of 1, which changes the performance a bit.
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Yeah, it seems a little busted from what little I played. I played in an org play group with Shards of the Glass Planet and our operative got a strike almost every turn from it. Their damage wasn't that bad at first level, but especially with multiple operatives I could see how it could get oppressive really quick.
We were discussing it after the fact and one thing that we came up with that might work well would be to have the hair trigger interact with the suppressed condition or cover. Basically, if we're imagining a creature that is suppressed is either flinching back into minute cover to try to protect themselves or a creature is actually in cover, then breaking it ought to have some consequences if a creature is on over watch waiting for them to come out.
Of course, we also like the idea of a feat that grants the operative the ability to make an opponent suppressed at range...'Operative's stare' or something along those lines, that costs an action and gives the opponent a will save vs the operative's class DC or intimidation DC, which if they fail they gain the suppressed condition. Basically a "You move, and I shoot!" kind of feel.
Not sure how this would play out, just spit balling ideas.
Remove it's ability to disrupt actions on a critical hit then it literally is just a ranged version of the Rogue's ability to get an extra stab! Rogues get 2 different reactions that allow them to have an extra 0 MAP stab. Which can 100% apply sneak attack and whatever debilitations they get at higher levels. So Aim + 1 extra shot isn't that bad, guns deal low damage after all.
The strength of things like "Kill Steal" and "Hair Trigger" is probably why the Operative doesn't get access to an extra reaction until the 20th level (while the envoy gets it at like 12th.)
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The feat really worries and bothers me, I could see a host of solutions, but at the very least I feel like disrupting spellcasters at 100ft feels very unfair.
In parties that have or get this reaction... it will likely be super annoying to resolve the first enemy doing one of the many options that provoke and suddenly you have to resolve 4 different reactions.
It feels very wrong for the operative to gain something that is significantly stronger than reactive strike at level 1 or 2, personally, I would like to see the level bumped a fair bit so it is harder to pick up via multiclassing, but various limitations and nerfs are worth considering.
Right now it would be a "this option is banned in my home game" level and that feels out of line for most of what I have seen from this new edition of SF2.
Edit: Personally I could see "you must have aimed at the enemy last turn" and "removing the ability to interrupt an" as a way to make it palatable.
That why I mentioned getting rid of the Disrupting part and once you do Hair Trigger loses a big potential of it's power budget because it isn't like you'd want it more over Kill Steal or perhaps as the person above said, Give it a trigger of "A Creature you're aimed at." which may make Kill Steal slightly better.
HOWEVER a thin we should all consider here is the following statement that Reactive Strike can gain +2 Attack Bonus via Flanking over Hair Trigger. As such this is why there is no 6 hit point Cloth Caster, they all have 8 hit points and Light Armor.
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That why I mentioned getting rid of the Disrupting part and once you do Hair Trigger loses a big potential of it's power budget because it isn't like you'd want it more over Kill Steal or perhaps as the person above said, Give it a trigger of "A Creature you're aimed at." which may make Kill Steal slightly better.
HOWEVER a thin we should all consider here is the following statement that Reactive Strike can gain +2 Attack Bonus via Flanking over Hair Trigger. As such this is why there is no 6 hit point Cloth Caster, they all have 8 hit points and Light Armor.
Even without the ability to disrupt, it's super powerful. Imagine you go up against 4 enemies with this ability at 100 feet with seeker rifles. You try to move up to them, and they get 4 shot on you. And you only get 75 feet to them. Next round you try to move up to them again, and they again get 4 shots on you. In addition to all the normal shots they get on you on their turn.
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I don't think "what if enemies had this ability" is the correct paradigm for examining something within the PF2 system, since while you can build antagonists using PC rules, the norm is not to. If you go through the various PF2 bestiaries/monster core only about 15% of enemies have Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike.
So the solution to "it's really annoying if 4 enemies have this ability" is "do not set up combats with 4 enemies that have this ability". Generally, the only antagonists you should be building the PC rules are things like "major villains who are not (physically) monstrous."
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to give this ability to like a Boss antagonist.
I don't think "what if enemies had this ability" is the correct paradigm for examining something within the PF2 system, since while you can build antagonists using PC rules, the norm is not to. If you go through the various PF2 bestiaries/monster core only about 15% of enemies have Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike.
So the solution to "it's really annoying if 4 enemies have this ability" is "do not set up combats with 4 enemies that have this ability". Generally, the only antagonists you should be building the PC rules are things like "major villains who are not (physically) monstrous."
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to give this ability to like a Boss antagonist.
I agree with your broad point that design for player abilities can and should be considered separately from NPC abilities. It is fair that we should consider Hair Trigger's design and balance on its own, as a player ability. For the record, I do still consider it substantially overtuned for a level 2 feat.
However, let's examine the other side of this for a second. An identically-worded ability to the Hair Trigger feat, called "Shot of Opportunity", is also featured on low-level hostile NPCs in some of the playtest material. See here... ( https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=1974 )
Whilst I might agree that putting 4 NPCs with this ability on the board is bad design or not fun to play against, that is how they have been written in the officially published material. So, whether the problem is "the ability needs rewriting" or "the encounter needs rewriting", there is definitely a change needed here. I do like your suggestion of using it as a "boss" ability, though again, perhaps there should be some limitations to allow the players an opportunity to counter-play.
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I don't think "what if enemies had this ability" is the correct paradigm for examining something within the PF2 system, since while you can build antagonists using PC rules, the norm is not to. If you go through the various PF2 bestiaries/monster core only about 15% of enemies have Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike.
So the solution to "it's really annoying if 4 enemies have this ability" is "do not set up combats with 4 enemies that have this ability". Generally, the only antagonists you should be building the PC rules are things like "major villains who are not (physically) monstrous."
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to give this ability to like a Boss antagonist.
Also. you . . . you do know that there is a chunk of the GM core devoted to how to build PC-style enemies right? And that Paizo has made many PC style enemies for their generic assassins/thieves/thugs in the past? In fact, an entire chunk of the game mastery guide was devoted to PC-style NPCs.
Yeah, you can build NPCs as PCs but that's still not really a useful metric for balancing abilities meant for players.
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Ranged AoOs that disrupt actions is exactly why Lesser Deaths are a chore to fight and definitely overtuned.
I personally think AoOs are a problem in the overall design of the game. The fact that monsters don't get them often makes it quite fine even if fights against multiple AoO monsters can quickly spiral out of control (taking 3+ attacks because you didn't know the enemies had Reflexive Strike is a really harsh punishment). And when a party starts having too many AoOs, it also pushes the party tactics toward exploiting them as there are not many strategies that competes with the net benefit of a bunch of extra no-MAP attacks.
So I'm definitely in the "less AoOs" side.
My table started Cosmic Birthday last saturday and, at least at 1st level, Hair Trigger is certainly overpowered as I suspected. I remember at least two encounters which ended in a single round because the operative had lucky rolls or crits against its first two targets and then a lucky roll or crit while using Hair Trigger in the foe's turn. Also the soldier of the party took Warning Spray which made some encounters like the ooze trivial.
The official hair trigger ability "Shot of Opportunity" only works at 30 feet at most. Changing Hair trigger to that would make it noticeably weaker ?
Furthermore I could see the feat moved to lvl 10 instead and Skirmishers get it at lvl 9 instead (mix places with its current lvl 9 feature)
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So... I had an idea about how to fix 'Hair Trigger': change the requirement from:
You're wielding a gun
to
You're wielding a 1-handed gun
That way, it still works well for the Skirmisher specialization, which is built around betting in close-ish with 1-handed guns, while not feeling overpowered and a "must have" for non-Skirmishers.
To note, among the Playtest 1-handed guns, most of them had a range of 30-40 ft, with only one having a 60 ft range. Furthermore, the damage for them is, on average, d4-d6.
What do you guys think?
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So... I had an idea about how to fix 'Hair Trigger': change the requirement from:
You're wielding a gun
to
You're wielding a 1-handed gunThat way, it still works well for the Skirmisher specialization, which is built around betting in close-ish with 1-handed guns, while not feeling overpowered and a "must have" for non-Skirmishers.
To note, among the Playtest 1-handed guns, most of them had a range of 30-40 ft, with only one having a 60 ft range. Furthermore, the damage for them is, on average, d4-d6.
What do you guys think?
60ft is still a ridiculous amount of range to be doing a reactive strike at, basically still guaranteed it will trigger every round because again - what can your opponent really do to not trigger it at that range? Melee enemies need to move, which triggers it. Ranged enemies attacking triggers it. Casters casting triggers it.
One of the triggers on it, or multiple of them, probably need to go, or it needs some other restriction (e.g. you Aimed at the target on your last turn). I’m most in favour of axing the move trigger and preventing its use on creatures that have cover from you.