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So with the Playtest not adding in a 6 Hit Point Class is it safe to assume Sorcerers, Witches and Wizards are a liability in the party at this point wiht their lower hit points and no armor proficiencies?
So, when questioned on why the Mystic, a 4-slot caster, also had 8 HP per level and light armor proficiency, a Paizo developer answered that this was to let them survive ranged firefights. If they're right, and this is the minimum amount of HP and AC you need to survive raged combat, then you're correct that any 6 HP/level cloth caster from Pathfinder is going to be a liability in Starfinder, and that this is going to be a major compatibility problem.
My theory, however, is that it is not in fact correct: the Mystic doesn't need more HP and more AC than a cloth caster because Starfinder combat is deadlier, because damage in Starfinder is actually a fair bit lower due to it being primarily ranged. Rather, Mystics currently need more HP and AC because it's otherwise very easy for them to get focus-fired by the enemy, and the enemy can focus-fire the party caster very easily not just because they're ranged, but because the tanky classes aren't tanking properly right now.
Currently, there are two tanks in Starfinder: the Solarian and the Soldier. The Solarian struggles heavily with reaching opponents in melee, the range where they want to fight, which means it's easy for opponents out of the Solarian's reach to ignore them and focus-fire a party member that's actually doing something. The Soldier, on the other hand, struggles to apply the large amounts of AoE and crowd control the class is meant to deliver, and while their single-target damage can actually get quite high, it's still not enough to make them a more desirable target than the far squishier party member who's also casting incredibly powerful spells.
So in this respect, if those classes were made to function as they ought to, the Mystic could likely work perfectly fine as a 6 HP/level cloth caster (and given how strong their class features are, they probably should be). It also means that if you were to bring in Pathfinder tanks, and made them work in Starfinder combat, then your Pathfinder casters might probably have better chances of survival too.
I still need to have more combats but I can see this being a bit of a problem. When you have freedom to target anyone you now have less reasons to focus upon any tank. As I said to my DM, If no one is frontline everyone is frontline but in this case it is If everyone has a gun, no one is safe from said gun.
I'll chime in to mention that a "cloth" caster is either giving up environmental protections entirely, giving up armor progression entirely, or giving up one relatively high-level spell slot a day for Mystic Armor.
I do think that even in an environment where every party member is accessible to ranged attacks, it's still possible to tank and draw focus away from your squishier allies. It's a bit more complex to implement, perhaps, but the principles already exist in Pathfinder.
Generally, there are two main types of tanks in Pathfinder: the aggressive tanks who make themselves a priority to enemies by being highly disruptive, like the Barbarian or the Monk, and the defensive tanks who protect their allies, like the Champion. Both the Solarian and the Soldier I think are aggressive tanks: assuming both functioned as intended, the Solarian would be a terrifying powerhouse of melee damage and disruptive AoE effects, whereas the Soldier would damage and suppress crowds of enemies at a time with their own AoE attacks. A functional Solarian would be basically impossible to ignore because they'd be slicing your team apart and moving everyone around, whereas a functional Soldier would be basically impossible to ignore because they'd be suppressing everyone and laying down heavy gunfire.
Unfortunately, that's not the case right now, and I do think there's a link between party members in Starfinder being easy to focus-fire and both the game's tanks being also by far the least functional classes in the playtest. In the encounters I've run where I modded the Solarian to fly at level 1 (and also be able to Fly with Stellar Rush), and the Soldier to be a bit more flexible with their actions and AoE, both started becoming much more impactful, and resultingly felt better at drawing attention to themselves. I don't have enough information to properly confirm this, but I do have hope both can become better at tanking, otherwise their defenses would just be for show.
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Do people in this thread play Pathfinder? People are acting like combats with ranged enemies are something that only exists in Starfinder and Wizards never have to worry about being shot at by a bunch of angry monsters with bows or something.
Beginner box even has a bunch of skeletons with shortbows that are way more lethal than anything in cosmic birthday.
So with the Playtest not adding in a 6 Hit Point Class is it safe to assume Sorcerers, Witches and Wizards are a liability in the party at this point wiht their lower hit points and no armor proficiencies?
I haven't seen the ranged meta of Starfinder. Everyone speaks about it but I think it's partly smoke and mirror.
Ranged enemies are weaker at melee range, so my parties often go for it when facing ranged enemies. As such, it quickly becomes melee combat.
Ranged enemies are extremely vulnerable to burst attacks. Fireball crushes them by both easily targetting them all and ignoring cover (if you aim the Fireball behind their cover). And as a side note, you don't need to have line of effect to the enemies to put them in your Fireball radius so you can cast your Fireball behind total cover. So ranged enemies want to either spread like crazy, and as such they won't be able to target whoever they want because most of the party will be behind total cover, or go for it to prevent the caster to aim their Fireball.
Also, maps are still rather small. I faced lots of fights that were starting in the classical 30-ft. range.
And many enemies are melee ones, especially when they are not humanoid. Only the party is ranged in that case.
Mix and matching all of that, I don't buy the ranged combat meta. And as Squiggit says ranged combat is also a thing in PF2. So maybe there are more ranged combat in SF2 than in PF2 but you'll still need your bag of classic strategies for the other types of combats and you need a ranged combat strategy for PF2, too. Potato, potahtoe...
Edit: There's one thing I forgot from my SF1 experience and that definitely doesn't exist in PF2: Extreme range combats (sniper alleys). These ones are a completely different exercize as in general the PCs are unable to retaliate considering the crazy range. I don't put them in the "ranged combat" category as they more often involve skills (Stealth mostly) to progress toward the enemy without being targetable.
I played multiple Pathfinder 2E combat but never really seen enemies at range be a real threat oddly enough. We fought a couple bandits with bows multiple times and a group of skeletons with short-bows and even then was not really all that threa5tening since we had high mobility melee on our side which cleaned them up rather quickly but the thing was in Starfinder we don't really, at least in both of the playtest campaigns I am in we don't have a proper tank outside of a single Solarian which is a Vesk, meaning he is rather slow. One combat was at 90ft with the Solarian and the other was in a different game without a Solarian at 30ft since they all had to turn a corner to enter our room.
If the first set of enemies had Laser Rifles over Semi-automatic Pistols and Rotolasers the backline would be much scarier. The space goblins with the Rotolasers could have easier wrecked the two Operatives... Actually I suppose not really though. Operatives have Expert Reflex giving them at level 1 both +9 to the save making AoE weapons less effect and with their short range all the enemies were doing was placing themselves within their 60ft Semi-Automatic Pistol's range.
With some consideration, I don't think Sorcerers or any other 6 hit point class is at any more of a disadvantage then any other class because ranged damage is lower which only thing you need to worry about is gettign ganged up upon which is normal for Pathfinder 2E's math.
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I'll chime in to mention that a "cloth" caster is either giving up environmental protections entirely, giving up armor progression entirely, or giving up one relatively high-level spell slot a day for Mystic Armor.
This seems trivial to fix though, just give an item that keys off unarmored proficiency and offers environmental protections. It even makes sense that the bulk of environmental protection options are not also designed to resist small arms fire.
This is most likely not in the playtest both because it does not require playtesting and because the classes in the playtest don't really want it.
I'll chime in to mention that a "cloth" caster is either giving up environmental protections entirely, giving up armor progression entirely, or giving up one relatively high-level spell slot a day for Mystic Armor.This seems trivial to fix though, just give an item that keys off unarmored proficiency and offers environmental protections. It even makes sense that the bulk of environmental protection options are not also designed to resist small arms fire.
This is most likely not in the playtest both because it does not require playtesting and because the classes in the playtest don't really want it.
I would retort with Plated Vesk. I think they're a big part of the reason why flight suits are so barren; the only character imaginable that will want it is a Plated Vesk and their big thing is using runes and no tech upgrade access. Putting in something that could circumvent that could be bad.
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They could also just include in whatever compatibility section they have - be it a sidebar, or a page, or else - a suggestion that classes like Wizard and Sorcerer when played under the Starfinder banner become 8 HP classes with Light Armor Proficiency, if that's the route they go.
I'm not sure if they need to, but who knows what the team ends up settling on.
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I would retort with Plated Vesk. I think they're a big part of the reason why flight suits are so barren; the only character imaginable that will want it is a Plated Vesk and their big thing is using runes and no tech upgrade access. Putting in something that could circumvent that could be bad.I'll chime in to mention that a "cloth" caster is either giving up environmental protections entirely, giving up armor progression entirely, or giving up one relatively high-level spell slot a day for Mystic Armor.This seems trivial to fix though, just give an item that keys off unarmored proficiency and offers environmental protections. It even makes sense that the bulk of environmental protection options are not also designed to resist small arms fire.
This is most likely not in the playtest both because it does not require playtesting and because the classes in the playtest don't really want it.
I'm not sure what the Plated Vesk has to do with anything, since it's just a port of the same ability we see on various Pathfinder heritages (Conrasu and Nagaji for example) with a little bit of Starfinder text.
But like in terms of "environmental protections" it doesn't need to be armor, so much as "something you can wear over a flight suit". Like if someone is going to go into a hazardous environment without the assumption that "I'm going to get into a gun fight" they're going to be wearing protective equipment that's not armor. The game is always going to have options so that regular degular humans are able to go to wherever the story needs them to go and do whatever the story needs them to do.
Like even if a plated vesk can't wear armor, they can still put on gear to protect them from environmental effects that doesn't count as armor. Like in PF2 putting on a Helm of Underwater Action doesn't turn off your magic armor, it supplements it.
You are right. But you also forget cover. I know this is a map design issue but hear me out. You get quite tanky if you use Take Cover to increase your Standard Cover to Greater Cover (+4 AC) after casting a spell for 2 actions. The soldier is the "Tank" of the group because he is most likely standing out in the open. Because he is probably trying to get within Area Attack or Automatic range. He is simply the easiest target to hit.
I wish this were true, but unfortunately the Soldier's up-to-legendary heavy armor proficiency means they end up having higher AC than even a caster in greater cover.
I also think the "low" range of most Starfinder weapons is intentional. I think the devs want us to move across the battlefield to flank enemies and to deny their cover by walking around. A Solarian and Soldier would be your first line of defense against an enemy who is trying to get behind you cover because they excel in close combat.
Oh, I definitely agree the Solarian's low range is intentional, because no other class I know of has the range on their abilities so consistently limited to 30 feet. I also think that's a fine restriction to have. My problem isn't so much with the Solarian's low range, but with their inability to close gaps adequately: if you're having a shootout and one of your enemies is on the balcony of a building, you can't really get into melee range of them easily, so you're left having to either pull out a gun and make crappy Strikes or spend your next several turns moving into range. If the enemy can fly, you simply won't be able to get in melee range at all. In practice, this makes it very easy for enemies to ignore the Solarian, because even though the class can butcher them in melee range, it'll be a while before the class actually gets there, and in the meantime they can just focus the Mystic.
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I think it's safe to say that this is still a playtest, and paizo is feeling out the classes still. That's why we playtest. I expect that the Witchwarper and Mystic will be reduced to 3 spells/rank in the final release. That would put them in around the same area as bards and druids (yes, I know, druids get medium armor proficiency, but their class abilities aren't generally as potent as some of the mystic class abilities, so, roughly on the same field I'd say.)