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Over on the Starfinder 2e subreddit, Justnobodyfqwl commented on how the newly revealed Space Pirate archetype looks unapologetically powerful and exciting in a way that's a noticeable break from how PF2e often balances its content. And I agree: the archetype rolls a better version of the level 7 Battle Cry skill feat into its dedication at level 2, grants a two-action stride and MAPless double strike at level 4, a combination of Nimble Dodge and Opportune Riposte at level 6, and an auto-heightening innate spell that you can sustain via striking at level 8. Wow!! And it's all done in the spirit of the fantasy with plenty of imagination and silliness on the side. It's delightful, it's fun, and it's STRONG.
Too strong, perhaps? I don't know--it's definitely busted for PF2's standards--but balance is relative. It's likely that the melee-oriented feats will be more difficult to take advantage of if most enemies would rather avoid you. However, if everything in SF2 has this kind of oomph? Then I think we're in for a real treat. Doubly so if enemies have the same level of mechanical swagger; I wanna see rockstar features like Broadside Charge and Pirate's Parry all over Alien Core. But if it's just this archetype, or it's just players with these toys, then SF2 could wind up with a very stale, lopsided meta.
Regardless, when I showed this archetype to my wife, she immediately started workshopping a character while dropping hints she wanted a pirate-themed campaign in the future. If that's not effective design, then I don't know what is.
What are your thoughts, gang?
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When we heard about Press Gang the Soul, I assumed that it would be around 12th level, that each soul could be used once before it escaped, and that there would be a one-hour time limit between killing somebody and using the soul.
Instead, it's eighth level, using the spell is at-will, and each soul is bound for as long as the phase cutlass survives. Heightening of the spell is effectively restricted by the number of phase cutlass killing blows with a reaction available, but sustaining the spell is wrapped into any successful strike (including metastrikes).
To me, this absolutely encapsulates the differences between what PF2 has led me to expect and what SF2 is offering. The coolest-sounding option, the one they chose to give an early summary of, lives up to the hype. It's exactly as cool as it sounds, and there's no suprise catch to it. (And this is not to say PF2 never has cool, strong things! But my expectations are tempered for a reason, with the occasional pleasant surprise.) The not-a-surprise catch to it is that it's an innate spell: Charisma based DC, and trained DC until 12th (unless you have casting from another source).
Looking at the rest...
The dedication is fantastic. You have proficiency bump to Piloting, a start-of-combat demoralize on everyone in a huge area, and a difficult-to-use bonus to Coerce within a minute of initiative. Even that last one is very in-keeping with how pirates work: you do best if you wrap things up quickly and get to the demands. (As a GM, I'd give the bonus to any Coerce attempt that starts with the flag active.) On top of all that, you also get proficiency with piratical weapons, including eventual critical specialization. The main thing it's doing is giving you the phase cutlass proficiency you need, but by including everything with the razing trait, the list will grow over time and can potentially include some thematic guns.
Broadside Charge is a nice bit of compensation for going sword-and-pistol. This is the one that feels most like it could be a solid PF2 archetype feat. It's good, but it's making up for two one-handed weapons being weaker than one two-hander. (There are also two very good demoralize feats available at this level, but the dedication is such a good option for your one demoralize per combat per person that these will probably get passed over. I'm happy they're there to support somebody going all-in on scaring people, or for characters who need to use the initiative free-action trigger for something else.)
Pirate's Parry really doubles down on sword-and-pistol being a good idea for the archetype. You get up close to a melee enemy with Broadside Charge, then punish them with a nasty +2 AC on reaction and a retaliatory attack if they crit-miss. I do think this is not as strong as it appears at first glance, because it only works against adjacent melee attacks- a less-common situation in SF2.
And finally... Press-Gang the Soul. Already talked about this, and how it lives up to how cool it sounds. Wisp Ally is one of the few save-based spells that feels 100% fine to have a weak DC on, because you force one save per rank. This is also a feat that proves you have killed at least a certain number of people by running them through with the very phase cutlass you are holding in your hand. Very useful for convincing people that it's not worth fighting you.
Going over the archetype, I don't think this is as overwhelmingly good as it might seem from a first glance and a PF2 perspective- the anti-melee feat won't see quite as much use in SF2, and there's more room for powerful feats if they're also locking you into a weaker, pricier weapon loadout.
Incredibly thematic and cool, strong without feeling like it's a must-have, and no wasted space. I will be thrilled if this proves to be the standard for SF2 archetypes.
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I agree with others in that thread that an exploration activity (coerce) bonus on rolling initiative doesn't really do much for combat so I don't think it's strong like people think it is; id need that to be erattaed to a bonus to demoralize checks to really be floored (and mayyyybe that was the RAI). It could be useful for some victory point negotiation encounter, but the point is the initial feat is a lot more niche than would be assumed at first glance.
EDIT: just reread and saw that level two feat let's you demoralize when you roll initiative. It's not a bonus but it's good action compression with your thematic pirate flag (I take back my complaints on the dedication feat).
HOWEVER, the rest of the archetype just straight up encourages and EMPOWERS a swashbuckling play style. The lvl 8 feat is extremely cool lore and can be fairly build worthy if you have or get your spell DC up by class choice or casting archetype. It is a great archetype, has a lot of general, widely applicable use in it that a bunch of pf2e archetypes shied away from; it stuffs the archetype full of space pirate flavor AND avoids giving abilities that would be so niche they couldn't compete with general combat effective class feats.
Bottom line, if I wanted to be a diaspora pirate this archetype could stand up against class feats, which is very impressive. Pf2e has these caliber of archetypes too (beast master, sentinel, champion, rogue, dual weapon fighter, mauler), of course, but they're more the exception than the rule; the flavor you want on your character can come at a steep price sometimes.
This is just a preview of one archetype, though, I'd want a couple books worth of archetype releases before declaring SF2E archetypes less niche than PF2E. Still, very encouraging!
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I'm a lot more nervous. Different power levels will kill the much vaunted cross compatibility between games. It also threatens to make encounter deaign much more of a headache.
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I'm a lot more nervous. Different power levels will kill the much vaunted cross compatibility between games. It also threatens to make encounter design much more of a headache.
Only if those varied power levels exceed the bar. This preview meets the bar like beast master or sentinel. We're just used to archetypes being so niche they can't be justified for general use over class feats (pf2e pirate or archeologist). If everything looked like a psychic or exemplar dedication it might give pause, but this doesn't look like that to me.
I don't think it's a matter of power levels so much as some archetypes having been made more for flavor than practical use; this is fine in the 2e engine since so much of your power comes from your base chassis but that's a different discussion.
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I don't see how this is even remotely comparable to sentinel or beastmaster. Sentinel isn't even that impressive post remaster now that the armor proficiency general feat is actually good. Beastmaster demands constant feat investment and Companions are only so-so anyway.
The dedication buffs demoralize to ludicrous degrees (It can also combo with Terrifying Retreat to occasionally just end encounters when you roll initiative once you hit 7th level). The 4th level feat would be strong action compression if it didn't give you two MAP-less strikes. The 6th level feat is fine, but the 8th level let's you cast a scaling ranked spell at will and gives action compression?
This is absolutely exemplar multiclass tier nonsense
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Squark, I think you're right to raise an eyebrow at the powercreep here. If I had to guess the logic behind busting it so severely, I'd probably say that the "ranged meta" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. For instance, getting into melee should be both riskier and more difficult in theory (how often will charge and parry actually pop off?), and fleeing is slightly less of an encounter ender when it's easier to pop back into the fight from a distance. The charge and parry also lock you into a two-handed, sword-and-pistol fighting style, which is a bit gimmicky and expensive to maintain.
The fact that you can only personally demoralize each enemy once per combat is also a natural limiter on how effective Holo-Roger can be, especially if whatever you just demoralized beats you in initiative. Press Gang the Soul is checked by being tied to both your spellcasting DC and melee attacks, and few classes are good at both.
So, there are some natural caps and tradeoffs here. The question is, are they enough? If we were looking at PF2 exclusively, definitely not: this is such a slam dunk for dexy, charismatic martials that it's tough to resist, and it straight-up improves upon a lot of similar standby features (rogues and swashbucklers are screaming). This is powercreep. On an archetype. Before the full game is even out yet.
But looking at SF2 alone, or the 2e engine as a whole? Maybe not. It's hard to say without putting it in context with everything else SF2 has to offer. It seems like it'd be great on operatives and envoys, but a tough sell on other classes thanks to how demanding it is on your playstyle. Can enemies cope with it? No idea! The only monsters I really drilled down into were the laser wolves. But if they get similar action compression, then it's fine; the playing field just needs to stay level.
As for cross compatibility, yeah, I think some jank was to be expected. Mystics and witchwarpers already powercrept PF2 casters, the operative dethroned several ranged martials, and the prevalence of creatures with both ridiculous mobility and ranged attacks at low levels made it tough for low-level PF2 characters to keep up. Homebrew balance tweaks seemed like an inevitability long before Paizo ever showed off the Space Pirate. I personally don't mind a little extra work as a GM (every other cross-compatible system family I've played up to this point has required some finessing to make everything fit), but not being able to blanket drag and drop could be a significant annoyance for some.
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I think people are overestimating the ranges SF2 will take place at. While everybody and their nufriend has a gun, sure, combat in urban environments and starships will confine things and provide plenty of ways to break line of sight, forcing closer engagements. Sure, Starfinder can make practical use of the occasional 30" x 46" map in a way its sibling would struggle, but plenty of fights will be in bars, cargo bays, seedy alleyways, etc.
Plus, from a practical standpoint, that 30" x 46" behemoth takes up so much space, and can draw out encounters if the enemies are content to camp on the opposite corner (The wheel of Monsters landed on the corpse fleet, and that last fight took forever to get in engagement range of the snipers).
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I'm just happy to see an archetype fully enable a swashbuckling play style. A lot of pf2e archetypes let you dip your toes in certain combat play styles but this one just enables it, full stop. Those are the kind of archetypes that tickle my brain for making characters and I'm fully floored for sf2e to have more of that moving forward (plus, archetypes not progressing your martial or caster progression fully into the other lane keeps me sanguine on the matter).
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My experience with the SF2 playtest was that the cross-compatible goal felt at odds with some of their other goals (ranged meta, embracing the sci-fi). So if they break cross-compatibility by having SF2 be at a different power level, I'm fine with that. As long as that means SF2 works better as a game of course.
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I've given it a lot of thought and to be honest I HIGHLY value cross compatibility, but what I want most of all is for the Starfinder devs to be able to put out a game they're proud of. If the balance between systems gets wonky, I can put up with a bit more homebrew tweaking to get them to mesh if it means a developer feels like they got to make the game they wanted to make rather than the one constraints boxed them into making.
Passion is what makes systems come out fun and last the test of time.
My experience with the SF2 playtest was that the cross-compatible goal felt at odds with some of their other goals (ranged meta, embracing the sci-fi). So if they break cross-compatibility by having SF2 be at a different power level, I'm fine with that. As long as that means SF2 works better as a game of course.
I think if you just slap uncommon or rare on SF2 stuff it is likely fine. If your GM does not want to deal with it then they can easily veto but if they are okay with a bit higher power adventure then let the dread space pirates rise.
So... Having skimmed through the Galaxy Guide, I'm left really confused. The other archetypes are perfectly reasonable. So why is Space Pirate Grade-A Limbourger*?
*A particularly odorous cheese
Maybe the Space Pirates plundered all the high powered loot.
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I found it frustrating when comparing it to the AbadarCorp Representative, which I'd been excited for.
Yeah, that very first Pirate feat is strong, and the whole archetype stays strong.
the Corpo rep gets... to be a Dandy-lite. We get to recall knowledge for our corp, and IF we take later feats we can replace a charisma check with it and aid with it... oh, I'm sorry those two feats can only be used once a day.
The space Pirate can whip their holo roger out in every encounter.
I like the Pirate's power, they've stated that the meta will be different. And I'm good with that. But I wish the other archetypes had similar power levels.
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I found it frustrating when comparing it to the AbadarCorp Representative, which I'd been excited for.
Yeah, that very first Pirate feat is strong, and the whole archetype stays strong.
the Corpo rep gets... to be a Dandy-lite. We get to recall knowledge for our corp, and IF we take later feats we can replace a charisma check with it and aid with it... oh, I'm sorry those two feats can only be used once a day.
The space Pirate can whip their holo roger out in every encounter.
I like the Pirate's power, they've stated that the meta will be different. And I'm good with that. But I wish the other archetypes had similar power levels.
There's always some initial wonkiness with initial releases, and this is coming out before the core rules. I'm hopeful that we'll get other things moving up to settle around Space Pirate with a little time.
Even AbadarCorp Rep has some bangers that are at Space Pirate's level- success-to-crit on every Intimidation-based Demoralize and Coerce is some serious power both in and out of combat, and it stacks with things like Quick Coercion or Group Coercion. I wish that it had a similar "everything feels good" cohesion to Pirate, but it's still putting in some good work.
As for the two feats you mentioned, it's once per day per person. Still rough for the "Aid" option, although not taking a reaction is nice, but it's really rare to have two separate influence conversations with the same person in one day. Sales Pitch moving two attitude steps up instead of one is a very nice perk.
Yeah, I was disappointed with the inconsistent power and quality of GG's archetypes, too. Oh well!