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After now having run some combats for all the classes at level 3, I feel I can give some feedback regarding class balance and system mechanics
The parties
Party A - Mystic, Envoy, Operative, Radiant Solarian. This party was just choosing what the player thought were the best 4 classes at this level. Soldier damage is not very good due to lacking a second damage dice, and no flat mod.
Party B, using the classes not present in the first one. Here the aim was to create some sort of synergy between Black Hole, Area Fire and Quantum Field.
Party C, this time it's just 4 soldiers trying out all the different subclasses and seeing how bad Soldier's problems can get at low levels.
The encounters are:
Workday 1
- 1x Skeletal Giant and 4x Observer-Class Security Robot (Severe)
- VP Skill Challenge
- 1x Elite Elf Ranger, 3x Elf Ranger, 3x Ghost Courier (Severe, enemies need to be taken out nonlethally if possible)
- 12x Computer Glitch Gremlin (Severe)
- VP Skill Challenge
- 1x Elite Tashtari Alpha (Severe)
Workday 2
- 4x Umbral Echo (Severe)
- 3x Electrovore (90XP, Moderate)
- 5x Hardlight Scamp (100XP, Moderate)
- VP Skill Challenge
- Corpse Fleet Officer x1 and 5x Cybernetic Zombie (Severe)
- VP Skill Challenge
I'll put the detailed breakdown of classes at the end
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System Mechanics
I'll echo most of what Teridax said here regarding the ranged focus of the game, I do think a number of things will need to change relative to the base ranged combat rules of PF2e in order to make ranged combat really pop.
1) Cover rules. Currently PF2e's rules are essentially "The GM tells you if there's cover" and "If in doubt, draw center to center". For a game where cover is presumably a thing that shows up often in combat, this really needs better defined rules. The center-to-center cover rules are not great, as it means if you have cover from an enemy, the enemy also has cover from you, making it impossible to outflank an enemy in cover while maintaining cover yourself. I'm not sure why we aren't using corner-to-corner cover rules, which would make it possible to do this. SF1e, PF1e and 4e all use corner-to-corner cover which are much more functional for this purpose.
2) Damage. Ranged damage is incredibly swingy and rather weak at low levels due to the lack of striking rune - particularly level 1-3 is a pain point for the Soldier, Operative and Envoy who struggle to deal enough damage to kill enemies unless they're really low level ones (level -1 to 1). Anything higher level just takes far longer to die due to lack of flat mod. I think this needs a general rules change for half dex mod to ranged damage at least, just to patch up these early levels, and make it less swingy. Rolling a 1 or 2 on your weapon dice feels like you accomplished absolutely nothing if you hit, and happens far too often at these levels.
3) Positioning and cover. Currently anyone can shoot anyone from pretty much anywhere, cover is the only concern. The operative and soldier both have incredible mobility through feats (Mobile Aim, Shot on the Run) to let them get around cover easily, which makes Taking Cover against them kind of a waste. But this also creates a number of flow-on issues.
- Unless forced (such as Corpse Fleet Infantry), enemies have no reason to group up (they don't need to flank or whatever), which makes it so Area Weapons have a really difficult time hitting more than 1 person.
- Enemies often have a lack of reason to really move except to get by cover, and you can't incentivise them to move to any particular location because there's often a pretty wide variety of angles they can attack from to get by cover. Grenades are not threatening enough (for the action cost, never mind the credit cost) to get enemies to want to move, and neither is the Quantum Field.
- Compounding on that, many options that exist right now are anti-movement, such as Hair Trigger and Overwatch - massive range reactions triggered by moving - making the battlefield even more static.
4) Map design. Often what makes sense for these maps doesn't lead to good gameplay. Cover based shooters have needed to custom design their maps for ages to ensure gameplay there is good, and tabletops are no different. You need to think of sight lines, cover, and the like. Ensuring that the map is neither too open, nor too cramped, that no position ensures unfettered access to everywhere on the map, but at the same time that no position blocks off a majority of the map. Starfinder flip-mats currently don't do this, they tend to vary between wide open and having an excessive amount of rooms/walls that block line of sight.
5) Reloading. Tracking reload on enemies as a GM is a major headache when they have different usage rates, different clip sizes and might even have autofire adding even more confusion. The GM should not be asked to track the minutiae of 5-6 different enemies expend values, especially when it often isn't relevant because the enemies will die before ever running out of bullets. Likewise for SF guns, batteries and petrol end up at so many shots that you will never feasibly run out in combat. Many weapons already start at the point where you can fire continuously for 3 rounds straight, or more, before needing to reload. If this mechanic is going to be this ignorable, don't bother including expend at all except on weapons that have a very limited number of shots, simply assume that everyone has enough bullets for the entire combat.
Other sci-fi games, such as Lancer, have tried to force movement with objectives which generally works pretty well. I do have a feeling that Starfinder doesn't want to force an objective into every combat, though.
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Soldier
Soldier damage at low levels is extremely luck dependent on your dice, and it struggles very much with resists. It doesn't get to combine PT damage with AF damage like e.g. Flurry of Blows or Double Slice does for the purpose of resist.
One of the two players also found it rather awkward due to being a bit stop-starty. Maybe its just because the VTT automation isn't there yet, but having both the soldier and GM roll every time they area fire + primary target feels clunky. IMO both sets of rolls should be on one side.
From all the subclasses, Bombard and Action Hero are easily the best. Bombard, however, works much better with many of Soldier's feats that rely on suppressed enemies (such as Overwatch or Warning Spray) because it suppresses much more frequently without spending additional actions to do so, so I'd rank it as #1, with action hero far below it at #2. Then the rest.
Close Quarters works reasonably well at low levels when the strength mod to damage is significant, and punitive strike disrupting movement on a hit is great. It does suffer from a number of issues such as not really having great ranged capability (for flying, ranged enemies which are common even at low levels) or flight available until jetpacks at level 5. It also doesn't scale particularly well if PF monsters are anything to go by, many of them will start outreaching your reach weapon, which significantly limits the efficacy of punitive strike. The biggest issue, by far, however is that Whirling Swipe is incompatible with pretty much every other Soldier feat due to being a distinct action. IMO, this should be given for free to Close Quarters, and should just be a free action start of turn trigger to add Area Burst and Unwieldy to your weapon.
Armor Storm seemed incredibly weak through play. Disarm, Trip, Grapple, etc. are just far less relevant when nearly every enemy is ranged. They don't need to move as much, so denying them the ability to move just doesn't matter. The resistance is too small at low levels to really matter and should have a flat bonus like 2+half level instead of just half level.
Erudite Warrior wasn't used but a distinct action to suppress 1 person seems quite bad. I like the "enemy loses suppressed if they attack you" and feel like this subclass could increase the penalty of suppress you apply for the downside of making them lose suppress if they attack you. Make it more of a "draw aggro" subclass.
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Solarian
I'll preface this by saying in all of these combats, Nimbus Surge and Solar Shot were never relevant a single time. The Solarian does have Ultralight Wings specifically to deal with ranged, flying enemies. The only things that meleed the Solarion were the skeletons, which neither the push nor fire damage were relevant against.
This class contributes at low levels off the strength of two things:
- 1) Strength modifier to damage. It does about as much damage as a champion.
- 2) Supernova is very strong against level- enemies at these low levels, where that much fire damage + blind kills or severely injures them. The damage does not scale particularly well past level 8-9 or so, and will only hit lower level enemies for ~20-25% of their HP on average post-save.
That's pretty much it. The Graviton strike effect never mattered because the Solarian has no Reactive Strike innately, needs to spend a level 4 feat to get it. The whole switch between graviton/photon thing barely mattered because the effects are really just not that much different between graviton and photon.
Black Hole was significantly worse than Supernova. Prone + pull on fail is much worse than blind, and it does less damage. It can't consistently group up enemies and gets awkward if you're trying to use it to pull an enemy in to attack them (basically making having Reach on your Solar Weapon mandatory, and even then you risk a CS causing your plans to be foiled).
I won't speak to higher levels of Solarian until I see it played, but at low levels this class is very mediocre outside of combats where Supernova could nuke the entire thing.
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Operative
This class has all the tools in the world and still somehow ends up doing Weakening Shot + Strike every round. I don't think there was a single round of combat in which Hair Trigger didn't trigger, the trigger is far too broad at far too great a range, and nearly everything an enemy can do triggers it.
Couldn't be locked down with reactive strike from the officer, tactical reposition gets them out of it scot free (it's meant to do that)
Can easily get around cover with Mobile Aim (or just aim's cover-reducing bonus)
The only thing keeping this vaguely in line at these levels was the fact that ranged damage is bad, I suspect when I do the level 8 playtest and this is doing 2d10+4d6+3 instead of 1d10+1d4, it will prove to be significantly overpowered. At level 3 it is merely very strong.
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Mystic
Easily an S tier class with healing connection (or just taking infusion on another connection with the feat). The party without the mystic had a much harder time than the one with the mystic solely due to the lack of massive heals that the mystic puts out practically resourcelessly. Comparisons of whether or not its better than heal font cleric, I think they're about equal or the Mystic is slightly ahead due to its much better burst healing capability with vitality network.
Can we get a consistent recharge rate on the network though? Why does it go from recharging in 2.5 rounds (level 1) to 10+ rounds (level 19). If the network scales up 4 per level, the recharge should scale up 1 per level.
Not really much else to say, its a spontaneous divine caster.
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Witchwarper
In all the combats with the Witchwarper, Quantum Field + Warp Terrain did not matter a single time. It could have mattered against the Skeletal Giant, forcing them into Stride + Stride + Glaive Strike instead of Stride + Terrifying Charge, but a push from the Hydraulic Push on the security robots made it possible to do the charge anyway. The passive effect never mattered.
Core memories ability was never used, the assurance in medicine technically did something in allowing the witchwarper to stabilize without a check.
Really this class just felt like a spontaneous occult caster with 4 slots, light armor and 8hp per level at this level. The field doesn't do enough of anything for the enemies to meaningfully change their turn based on its existence, and using Warp Terrain to provide cover for allies proved rather awkward in practice.
Ultimately the Witchwarper just dropped sustaining their QF a good chunk of the time, and in more difficult combats used either Soul Surge or Force Barrage.
This might change at later levels when it gets better stuff going on with its QF, but this core feature should be relevant without high level feats.
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Envoy
It really just suffers from having a very rote turn of Get 'Em, Strike, X. Get 'Em lasting only a single turn and being single-target until level 18 feels rather bad, it does feel like you're just using a worse version of inspire courage - a cantrip that comes stapled to a class that also has full casting.
Its damage isn't bad at low levels, d10+3 with a seeker rifle is the same as the Solarian's d8+4, and it also comes with a bonus for your party. Not stacking with off guard is a bit sad.
I think this class either
a) Needs more directives and directives should not be feats, rather given from a pool.
or
b) Needs to action compress its Acts of Leadership into directives, and do so from level 1.
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Combats
Party A
Encounter 1 - Skeletal Giant x1, Observer Class Security Robot x4
Init - Envoy (31), Operative (28), Mystic (25), Robots (top left, bottom right, 23, 21), Solarian (19), rest of enemies (18 robot, 12 giant, 11 robot)
- Did the Solarion use any special abilities? No
- Very easy though, everyone has the ability to bypass skeleton resists (Solarian bludgeoning, envoy and operative have acid darts), robots go down fast and hair trigger crit stops a hydraulic push dead.
Encounter 2 - 1x Elite Elf Ranger, 3x Elf Ranger, 3x Ghost Courier
Init - Envoy (29), Solarian (HP Reroll, 19->27), Courier (Middle Bottom, 24), Elf Ranger (Both Bottom, 24, 22), Operative (20), Courier (Bottom Left), Elite Ranger (18), Ranger (Top right, 17), Mystic (14), Courier (Top, 9)
- Supernova nukes enemy side, we forgot this was supposed to be nonlethal. Reset.
Encounter 2 (try 2)
Init - Operative, Elite Elf Ranger (31), Elf Ranger (Top, 30), Ghost Courier (Middle Bottom, 25), Mystic (23), Solarian (18), Elf Ranger (Middle Bottom, 18), Envoy (HP Reroll 18->17), Rest of enemies (14 ranger, 11 9 couriers)
HPs used - Envoy, Solarian, Operative
- A really sloggy, but not difficult, encounter due to the quantity of cover and line of sight blockers on this map. The enemies constantly move between rooms, closing doors, etc. forcing the party to spend a bunch of actions chasing them around. The enemies can do this due to double shot and the couriers attacks past the first are pointless anyway.
- Mystic kinda gets close to going down but ultimately healing from Infusion and Transfer Vitality outpaces enemy damage
- Permanent resources used: None
Encounter 3 - 12x Computer Glitch Gremlin
Init - Solarion (HP Reroll 15->32), Mystic (27), Gremlin (6th from the right, 25), Operative (24), Gremlin (Rightmost, 22), Envoy (22), rest of gremlins (21, 21, 19, 19, 16, lower)
- What armor is metal for the purpose of Thunderstrike? We ruled Hardlight to be metal because of the projector, but its somewhat unclear. Especially for e.g. Skyfire which says it "often" has metal.
- The most threatening level-1 enemy is still a level-1 enemy, past their initial Thunderstrike barrage (of those that survived to take a turn) which... did about 25 damage to the mystic all we are left with is a very slow, very low range, very low damage enemy who is Hair Trigger fodder.
- Glitching doesn't seem to affect armor at all, so glitch aura did really nothing on the Operative or Envoy due to the Seeker Rifle being analog.
Encounter 4 - 1x Elite Tashtari Alpha
Init - Solarian (29), Mystic (26), Operative (25), Envoy (HP Reroll 14->22), Tashtari (20)
- Envoy dies, Mystic dies but Tashtari also dies
- Unlucky CF vs Solar Cry one shots envoy and from there its a cycle of getting back up and getting hit down, they can't afford to stay down due to persistent
- Mystic rolls an unlucky nat 1 recovery check with persistent on them
- Fight takes until round 6 to finish, Solarian and Operative just lack damage output on the Tashtari without appropriate striking runes.
Encounter 4 (Redo)
Init - Party (Mystic 33, Operative 31, Envoy 31, Solarian 24), Tashtari (17)
- Party rolls very well this time and Tashtari dies on round 2
Encounter 5 - 4x Umbral Echo
Init - Solarian (31), Envoy (29), Echo (Bottom-right, 22), Mystic (21), Operative (19), Other echoes (15, 14, 12)
- Pretty much as expected, everyone but the Solarian who has a Light spell on their Solar Weapon struggles to do real damage.
- Mystic highrolls a Soul Surge to one shot an echo, Solarian takes out 2, Operative and Envoy combined with a few crits manage to take out 1
- Echoes don't really do anything because they get mulched too fast
Encounter 6 - 3x Electrovore
Init - Mystic (29), Electrovore (top, 28), Solarian (26), Electrovore (Bottom, 23), Envoy (21), Operative (19), Electrovore (Middle, 15)
- High rolled supernova + bad fort save enemies = very easy encounter even though 1 of them rolled a natural 20, it wasn't enough
- Not very hard
- Limited use resources used: Fear
Encounter 7 - 5x Hardlight Scamp
Init - Mystic (33), Scamp (Top right, 24), Solarian (22), Scamp (Top middle, 21), Operative (20), Scamp (Bottom Right, 18), Envoy (18), Scamps (15, 8)
- Another encounter of level-2 enemies at this low level, another supernova clearing everything instantly and leaving what remains as a blinded mess
- Not very hard
- Probably warped by low level HP/damage scaling, i expect these issues will steadily get resolved as levels climb
Encounter 8 - 1x Corpse Fleet Officer, 4x Cybernetic Zombie
Init - Operative (32), Solarian (30), Zombie (top left, 23), Officer (23), Zombie (bottom left, 22), Mystic (22), Envoy (22), Zombie (Bottom right, 15), Zombie (Top right, 9. Top, 7.)
- Hero points: Operative, Mystic, Solarian, Envoy (assumed for a medicine check)
- Corpse fleet officer rolls pretty badly with not a single crit, but gets crit twice (2 nat 20s)
- Probably way easier than it should be due to 3 party members having arc rifles so they're able to mulch the zombies
- 2 corpse officers and zombies, an elite corpse officer and 4 zombies or 2 elite corpse officers would all be significantly harder combats (probably a loss)
Past the initial supernova, Solarian feels pretty bad
- Mystic may or may not die depending on the party's medicine rolls (no one is trained in medicine). Assuming someone is, Mystic lives.
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Quad Soldier
Encounter 1 - 1x Skeletal Giant, 4x Observer-Class Security Robot
Init - Buster, Hotshot, Robot (Bottom-Left), Hammer, Robot (Top-Left), Skeletal Giant, Anvil, Other two robots
- Resources used Battle Medicine (on Hammer) x2: Anvil, Buster, Battle Medicine (On Anvil): Anvil, Buster
- Resist 5 fire, cold, electric and piercing is very hard for a low level soldier to do anything about, the only weapon that really gets by this is the Screamer which is advanced
- Fight ends round 8, first enemy dies round 5. Damage output is extremely low and the skeleton's resist 5 piercing means the soldiers do basically nothing to it without critting. One resorts to unarmed strikes to deal some measure of damage.
- Party wins
Encounter 2 - 1x Elite Elf Ranger, 3x Elf Ranger, 3x Ghost Courier
Init - All the enemies except the top courier, hotshot, top courier, rest of party
Battle Medicine (on Hotshot): Buster
- Hypernerves
- Soldiers definitely had an easier time with this than the other party and I think Shot on the Run was a big reason why
- Party wins round 3, pretty easily
Encounter 3 - 12x Computer Glitch Gremlin
Init - 2 Gremlins, Hotshot, Anvil, Gremlin, Buster, 7 Gremlins, Hammer, 2 Gremlins
- A salvo of thunderstrikes takes out Hotshot but these gremlins are still -1 creatures and thus have no real damage past that, and die easily to area fire
- Party wins round 4 or so, its a bit grindy but not difficult
Encounter 4 - 1x Elite Tashtari Alpha
Init - Tashtari, Party
- Soldier is unsuprisingly terrible against a single enemy with high reflex
- With very limited damage output on the party's side (and the Tashtari rolling 2 crits) opted to call it in the Tashtari's favour
- Probably not winnable without extreme luck
Encounter 5 - 4x Umbral Echo
Init - Echoes (all but top left), Buster, Echo (top left), rest of party
- Not really winnable, d10+0 vs resist 5 all and high reflex saves
Encounter 6 - 3x Electrovore
Init - Anvil, Hotshot, Electrovores (Middle + Top), Buster, Electrovore (Bottom), Hammer
- Not really loseable, only one character gets close to dropping, not a difficult encounter just takes a while due to low damage
Encounter 7 - 5x Hardlight Scamp
Init - Buster, Scamps (all but top left), Hammer, Hotshot, Scamp (top left), Anvil
- The damage on these enemies is awful so they're not actually threatening, that plus some bad attack rolls means that barely any damage is dealt
- Very easy
Encounter 8 - 1x Corpse Fleet Officer, 5x Cybernetic Zombie
Init - Hotshot, Hammer, Zombies (both right), Officer, Anvil, Buster, Other zombies
- Considering the struggles facing the Skeletal Giant before, it should come as no surprise that the Corpse Fleet Officer, a far more threatening enemy, is too difficult for the party to overcome
- With no electric or slashing damage, the zombies are way tougher than the observer robots
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Party B
Encounter 1 - 1x Skeletal Giant, 4x Observer-Class Security Robot
Init - Same as Party A, replace envoy with soldier and mystic with witchwarper (-1 init)
- Hero points used Operative, Witchwarper, Soldier, Solarian
- Operative drops to 0 this combat
- Obviously way harder without the Mystic, also some very good luck with saves on the enemy side
- Witchwarper's field does absolutely nothing this combat and after the initial round won't do anything, so its just dropped. No this is not a case of "The Quantum Field is forcing the enemies to move out of the field", I would call that out if it was that. The enemies, if they are moving at all, already wanted to move and the field is not doing anything to impede that movement.
- Resources used: 1x Force Barrage
Encounter 2
Init - Same as party A, except the Soldier does not burn a hero point for init (they are less inconvenienced due to Warning Spray)
- No Take Em Alive this time so the party tries to switch between lethal and nonlethal, an accidental crit (->HP crit) made at a full health ranger causes them to die
- Witchwarper field does nothing, WW moves around opening doors for people
- Player plays better around the map this time, enemies' low damage makes this fight a non threat, but still takes almost 5 rounds to finish
Encounter 3
Init - Same party A
- Quantum field continues doing nothing
- Sad low roll blackhole
- Still a very easy encounter, these enemies have very low speed and range past their initial thunderstrike volley which leads to them being unable to meaningfully follow up
- Resources used: Force Barrage x2
Encounter 4
Init - Same party A try 1
- After an 8 round slog in which 2 party members (solarian and soldier) die, and Witchwarper gets very lucky to survive (passed their persistent check and all the death saves), the Operative wins barely at 6 hp and is also very lucky to survive (rolled 2 on 2d6 persistent at 8 hp, then passed the check)
- Tashtari is also fairly unlucky, not rolling a single crit until round 6
- This is one of the weaker level 6 monsters, the party simply cannot do enough damage
- Quantum field does nothing
- Resources used: Soul Surge x2
Encounter 4 (Redo)
Init - Same as party A try 2
- New strategy, Witchwarper just ignores everything that's new and spams Force Barrage instead
- Some luck on hits, but the WW adding +35 or so damage from 3 force barrages instead of +0 from missing Soul Surge twice makes a tangible impact on the tashtari's health
- Resources used: Force Barrage x3
Encounter 5
Init - Same party A
- Resources used: Soul Surge, Force Barrage
- Not very hard when 2 characters have Light, however Soldier who doesn't have Light is unable to do anything
- Quantum Field still does nothing
Encounter 6
Init - Same as party A
- Very easy, enemies can't really do that much damage
- Quantum field does nothing
- Blackhole was kind of useful for knocking the enemies out of the air, even though they both just Arrested to prevent taking fall damage
Encounter 7
Init - Same as party A
- Still a very non threatening encounter
- Party does get kinda lucky with 2 CFs vs Black Hole and a CF vs Frostbite, but it really wouldn't matter if these were only regular fails
- Enemies do too little damage to be threatening and have too little hp. Standard level 1 enemies used at level 3 issues.
- Quantum field obviously does nothing because everything died
Encounter 8
Init - Same as party A
- Stellar Rush says you choose the pull order but Black Hole doesn't, implying you can't choose the pull order (in which case, what would be the pull order?)
- Solarian dies
- Barely a victory with the zombies being a non threat after the officer died due to 2 arc rifles (the arc trait works well on these weakness 10 electricity enemies that want to be grouped for rotting aura stacking)
- Nimbus surge triggers... and does nothing because the captain has fire res 5
Encounter 8 try 2 (different strat)
Init - Same as party A
- This time the party tries to focus the zombies first with their arc rifles instead of the officer.
- Officer has some really bad luck this combat (misses ~half or more of his attacks when they hit on a 6, zero crits)
- Pretty sure if the officer's attack rolls were the same as the first iteration, this would be a much different story, I'm fairly certain this strategy is just worse on average.
- Operative goes down but survives