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Same thing but level 3, pre a bunch of errata though
Been a while, fellow player wanted to wait for a bit of errata before continuing and we were doing some other stuff in the meantime, but we're back on track to do this, then level 13, level 16 and level 20 soon.
I'll start with the class feedback first and then the specific encounter stuff later.
Party A - Mystic, Envoy, Skirmisher Operative, Solarian
Party B - Action Hero soldier, Bombard soldier, Ghost operative, Witchwarper
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Envoy
There is almost no significant difference in play pattern since level 3. Get 'em!, Strike, X (demoralize/second strike usually). Watch Out! and Look Alive! were really annoying to track, luckily we wrote down all the dice rolls for the dozens of times we forgot about it, so we could retroactively alter things. It's just so unlikely to actually do anything, and you need to use it pre-roll.
I don't really have much to say that I didn't say in the level 3 playtest.
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Mystic
Basically played the same as it did in level 3, except this time it's a Rhythm mystic with New Epiphany for infusion. So it's transfer to sustain or activate Anthem, and infusion. They didn't do anything else, really, because they didn't need to do anything else, and that's despite all of these encounters being in the extreme range.
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Operative
With Always Ready and Switch Target, you're basically playing with an unnerfed hair trigger. And yes, it's still busted even post nerf. Not really much else to say, with 1 or 2 weapon upgrades available at this level, it does crazy damage at range.
Ghost Operative was also played in addition to the more vanilla skirmisher operative (that was just skirmisher for the free hair trigger feat). Ghost Operative is... significantly jankier. It relied on the Witchwarper providing it invisibility, and even then it might be the most feast-or-famine class I've ever played. You successfully sneak (usually a coinflip), and then you crit, the encounter is trivial because stunned 1 round is massive. If you fail the sneak, you usually don't get a second attempt to do so, because if you fail again you can't free action aim and strike. If you miss the attack after your sneak, your sneak was pointless.
Also runs into stun-mid-turn issues as seen before, except this case because it's a stun 1 round that applies mid turn, its even worse. Stunned 1 you can just take an action off next turn, 1 round means either
1) They lose the rest of their turn, and it wears off at the start of the operative's turn by duration rules.
2) It does literally nothing and wears off at the start of the operative's turn by duration rules.
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Solarian
Basically just playing an inferior fighter/barbarian. It gets in people's faces with reach reactive strike, and that's good enough for starfinder where most ranged enemies simply can't do anything except take the reactive strike. Supernova didn't see much use at this level, Solarian had to move a lot.
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Soldier
Add overwatch, the class is now top tier. Two variants of soldier were played, action hero and bombard. They basically played the exact same though. Both were Shirrens for Eager Assistant so they had a consistent use of their third action (aiding the ghost operative in this case). Action hero used Fog of War to some effect, whereas Bombard used covering fire, but they mostly both used Shot on the Run.
Suppressed is still very feast-or-famine as a mechanic as well. If you have a slow (20-30 speed), melee enemy it cripples them (worse, I imagine, with Anchoring Impacts). If you have a high speed enemy (pretty much a coinflip by this level or later) or a ranged enemy, they don't care.
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Witchwarper
Aside from Quantum Field being a bad effect, I now present a second problem with Quantum Field: Action economy. This witchwarper was a Gap witchwarper, so they could use Forget on the ghost operative to give them invisibility. This meant they had to keep Quantum Field sustained every turn, which made them... extremely immobile, to say the least. They found it difficult to even use their spells with most spells being 30ft range, and not sustaining the quantum field, they couldn't Stride+Cast if they wanted to keep the field up.
Yes this was easily worse than just casting Invisibility 4 and as such I will just be using that, or advanced cloaking skin, at level 13.
I don't really see why they need to sustain the QF, its effects still aren't good enough to justify the action cost sustaining it. Why not just have it stick around no sustain, with Anchoring being to move it, and Quantum Transposition to move it further?
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Encounters
- 2x Protection-Class Security Robot and 2x Commander Eiran. The protection-class robots start with covering posture already used, Commander Eirans start already having taken cover and in a favourable position.(140XP)
Not very hard, overwatch/hair trigger/reactive strike wrecks them.
Witchwarper / Action Hero Soldier / Bombard Soldier / Ghost Operative party struggled a bit more than Mystic / Skirmisher Operative / Solarian / Envoy due to poor dice luck.
- 1x Elite Vampire Mastermind and 1x Elite Captain Vasoya (160XP).
Would only be hard due to the cheese factor of dominate. Mystic party just passed the save, soldier party suppressed the vampire making it unable to dominate anyone due to range/speed issues. Vasoya gets wrecked by suppress.
Amusingly the Solarian is still the worst at dealing with the vampire due to being hardstuck to a physical damage weapon, whereas everyone else gets elemental weapons.
- 4x Void Shark (160XP) in zero-G.
Probably the second hardest encounter here, due to the cheese factor of Swallow Whole + flying really far away. Soldier party was better here, mystic party suffered the most by having mystic constantly stuck swallowed, but ultimately the party won both times handily.
- 1x Asteray (160XP) inside a starship, starts with Matter Consumption already used (expires round 10).
Both parties come in prepared with cold iron weapons, reactions on movement (hair trigger + reactive strike or hair trigger + 2x overwatch) and darkness (asteray doesn't have darkvision). This is still not an easy fight, at all. The asteray is blazing fast, able to run around the starship to block line of sight while still getting off 2 ranged attacks. If it weren't for all those preparations, both parties would easily lose this.
This is another example of kiting, cover-based combat and... it's really just not fun, at all. You're just chasing some super fast enemy around a map, barely able to hit it.
- 3x Living Lodestone and 5x Elite Hatchling Swarm (135XP)
Not difficult. Enemies can't really do enough damage. Both parties get out of this with barely a scratch.
- 1x Corpse Fleet Screamer and 2x Elite Sample 62 (160XP)
Sample 62s get wrecked because of fire weakness (every single party member has either a laser rifle or a backup fire weapon such as a rotolaser or flamethrower for non-physical damage needs). Screamer takes a long time to take out, especially for the soldiers who do almost no damage to it. Fortunately, it does not do much in return, so this is mostly a grind fest.
- 1x Elite Famesworn (160XP)
Kinda scary but only because of Absorb. One person hits the floor and a single Stride instantly kills them (the famesworn is encouraged to do this). Unsurprisingly the Solarian party is at bigger risk here because the Solarian needs to close gap on it, whereas the other party can kite away from it (unusually poor dice luck meant that they couldn't suppress or slow it that well).
Still, no one died, and people only came close to dying due to threat of Absorb, not because of dying values.
- 2x Troll Bombard in a tiny room (160XP)
15ft burst grenades and autofire in a tiny room should be good for these dudes, right? Unfortunately, electricity weakness 10 and fire weakness 10 is a total death sentence, given how heavily incentivized PF2e and by extension, SF2e PCs are to stack elemental damage runes, everyone having shock modules with a fire damage weapon (laser rifle/rotolaser/flamethrower) meant that these dudes died like chumps.
Ghost operative crit twice in this fight rendering it even more trivial.
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