So I feel like I saw this mentioned before, but didn't see any consensus on if it works or not.
The Swarm Exile heritage for Shirren have a Bio-Cannon built in, there is a level 9 Heritage feat to upgrade this Bio-Cannon to 40ft range, and also give it the option of an area line as a free action. So I am wondering if this would count as an Area Weapon for the Soldier? And if so would it take 2 actions or 1 to fire the line?
The phrasing is not the best, but the intent seems to be that the bio-cannon has a second "mode" that works just like an area weapon. Meaning this would still take 2 actions as normal.
However, at least Suppressing Fire and Primary Target explicitly require you to use a weapon and the bio-cannon is an unarmed attack, not a weapon. So it won't work for the Soldier.
Yeah sad. The image of a bug alien opening up a big ol' bio cannon and blasting it Soldier style with suppressing fire feels pretty cool. But yeah I worried being unarmed might hinder it.
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Generally the standard for such features in 2e, such as the Rogue's Sneak Attack or the Swashbuckler's Precise Strike in Pathfinder, is to include both weapons and unarmed attacks whenever possible. I imagine the devs didn't think there would be area unarmed attacks as well when they wrote the text for Suppressing Fire, so I hope the mechanic gets updated to include those, as currently this is a significant missed opportunity for cool synergy with certain ancestries and heritages.
Would be very cool