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I read very briefly through Mechanic, focusing on Mines because it sounded novel.
First off, in my experience, Starfinder was a much more three dimensional game than Pathfinder, which implicitly limits how useful area control and delayed area damage effects are.
It doesn't seem like Mines can be deployed in the air which is pretty limiting. Maybe a level-dependent mod or a feat would be useful to add that functionality? Gravitic Mines would make sense to have hovering Mines as a mod or a rider
Related, Mines can only be ranged deployed to an occupied square? Why? At third level you gain the ability to move them anyway. Just feels strangely limited.
Ranged Combat is the meta for friends and foes alike, so it's good that we can deploy a mine at a distance.
Do regular Starfinder humans recognize a mine as it's being deployed? How difficult is it to know that a deployed object is a mine? How big is a mine? They don't take up bulk while stored in the Rig, but what if someone else tries to pick one up?
12 feels like an absurdly high level for Healing Mines. An Alchemist gets healing bombs at 4.
How does Double Deployment even work? 1 action deploy twice is cool and the last line seems like you should be able to ranged deploye them, otherwise they could never be 30ft apart.
Terraforming Mines requires Gravitic Mines, but its effect "Big Bang" is exactly the same as Gravitic Mines's "Big Bang"
Multitasker's description text specifically mentions only mines, but its effect applies to all subclasses. Probably should be a broader description.
This is all critical because I think it's neat and I want to see it as clean, functional, and effective as possible.

ssims2 |
Also, with Instant Deployment / Mobile Deployment / Double Deployment / etc. : these allow you to Deploy Mine while doing other things or as a free action. Can you use the 2-action (ranged) version of Deploy Mine with them?

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Also, with Instant Deployment / Mobile Deployment / Double Deployment / etc. : these allow you to Deploy Mine while doing other things or as a free action. Can you use the 2-action (ranged) version of Deploy Mine with them?
I was going to originally bring this up, and suggest some kind of rider into those special actions to allow using an extra action to ranged deploy, but the existence of Reposition Exocortex makes that a little moot.

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Another thing I forgot to mention earlier:
Mines are deployed into a square but their aoe is a burst, not an emanation.
I think it'd be totally fine to Deploy a mine to a grid intersection instead of a square. I don't see a feat or ability that relies on the mine being in a square. Even the Proximity Alert Mine feat only cares about the burst area.

Perpdepog |
Another thing I forgot to mention earlier:
Mines are deployed into a square but their aoe is a burst, not an emanation.
I think it'd be totally fine to Deploy a mine to a grid intersection instead of a square. I don't see a feat or ability that relies on the mine being in a square. Even the Proximity Alert Mine feat only cares about the burst area.
I agree. IIRC, mines aren't even really considered objects as such. They haven't got hit points or AC or anything. It makes more sense to place them at intersections like some spell effects are in that case.

Xenocrat |

12 feels like an absurdly high level for Healing Mines. An Alchemist gets healing bombs at 4.
Healing Mines are AOE, do fireball damage equivalent healing (which is a little higher on average albeit more variable than the single target elixir of life numbers, but also scales more smoothly), and can't miss. Much better.

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Ectar wrote:
12 feels like an absurdly high level for Healing Mines. An Alchemist gets healing bombs at 4.
Healing Mines are AOE, do fireball damage equivalent healing (which is a little higher on average albeit more variable than the single target elixir of life numbers, but also scales more smoothly), and can't miss. Much better.
It also takes your entire turn and reaction if you wish to use it vs something you aren't adjacent to or to exclude up to 2 enemies. And you can't do both.
Sure, it's better. But it's not like Healing Bombs are on the bleeding edge of powerful feats. And I don't think it's 8 levels more powerful.
OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 |

My initial thoughts on reading mines and remembering the PF2 Necromancer “thralls” ran to whether or not anyone can target or destroy mines. They apparently don’t detonate when damaged, but *can* they be targeted or “attacked” individually/singly? Outside of AoE blasts damaging them - as Perpdepog points out there are no AC or HP… - they apparently *do* take damage, or can be damaged…

Qaianna |

"I am the mine guy" seems weirdly specific to me. Like why is it not a general explosives/grenades person, who then has the option to grab mines if they want?
I'd say there's a difference between them. Grenades are more active -- you throw them at an enemy to either destroy or at least move them from where they are. Mines are there to tell the enemy 'don't go here' or 'you moved here, now die'.
Still, an earlier question does need visiting: how visible are they? I'm going to assume 'very' since part of the point is to deny the area to an enemy.
Also now slightly worried about some smart-alec trying to use the mines as shields since they can't be damaged, but a good GM would put paid to that -- I assume the whole invulnerability thing is only to battlefield effects. They can already be disarmed anyway..

DeltaPangaea |
DeltaPangaea wrote:"I am the mine guy" seems weirdly specific to me. Like why is it not a general explosives/grenades person, who then has the option to grab mines if they want?I'd say there's a difference between them. Grenades are more active -- you throw them at an enemy to either destroy or at least move them from where they are. Mines are there to tell the enemy 'don't go here' or 'you moved here, now die'.
Still, an earlier question does need visiting: how visible are they? I'm going to assume 'very' since part of the point is to deny the area to an enemy.
Also now slightly worried about some smart-alec trying to use the mines as shields since they can't be damaged, but a good GM would put paid to that -- I assume the whole invulnerability thing is only to battlefield effects. They can already be disarmed anyway..
Yes, but mines is a much more niche field than bombs, and I'm betting you dollars to donuts that a lot of the time people will just throw them then detonate them immediately because you can't always assume setup, and doing damage NOW is better than "discourage an enemy from moving here" especially in a system more leaning towards ranged combat so they might not even NEED to move.

Qaianna |

Qaianna wrote:Yes, but mines is a much more niche field than bombs, and I'm betting you dollars to donuts that a lot of the time people will just throw them then detonate them immediately because you can't always assume setup, and doing damage NOW is better than "discourage an enemy from moving here" especially in a system more leaning towards ranged combat so they might not even NEED to move.DeltaPangaea wrote:"I am the mine guy" seems weirdly specific to me. Like why is it not a general explosives/grenades person, who then has the option to grab mines if they want?I'd say there's a difference between them. Grenades are more active -- you throw them at an enemy to either destroy or at least move them from where they are. Mines are there to tell the enemy 'don't go here' or 'you moved here, now die'.
Still, an earlier question does need visiting: how visible are they? I'm going to assume 'very' since part of the point is to deny the area to an enemy.
Also now slightly worried about some smart-alec trying to use the mines as shields since they can't be damaged, but a good GM would put paid to that -- I assume the whole invulnerability thing is only to battlefield effects. They can already be disarmed anyway..
Probably. Some parts of this will rely on how the GM plays the enemies too, of course. I'm not quite sure I'd play a mine mechanic myself. I actually liked a little of the lore behind the 1E exocortex (and why my vesk had one), and not quite sure whether a robot buddy or a turret would be a 'better' option for how I'd want to do things.

Candlejake |
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concerning flying enemies: technically Mines dont even say they need to be on the ground. For ranged deployment it just says in a square. I dont see the ground mentioned anywhere.
Sidenote: The two action deployment actually says "You can increase the number of
actions you spend Deploying a Mine to 2, to instead plant the
mine in an occupied square within 30 feet."
Im pretty sure that should be UNoccupied, right?

RLhoshi |

In addition to many good points made here, in my opinion Modify lacks versatility for Mine Exo builds.
a) A game that wants combatants to stay mobile makes Smart Mine pretty much mandatory if you don't want to constantly repositioning your mines. That gets even worse with multiple melee characters in your party.
I think there should be the possibility to exclude friends from the detonation without using a mod. Accidentally hurting your friends with your main feature is never fun. If balancing is an issue that bad, at least make Smart Mine a seperate passive feat that does not require spending a mod.
b) Apart from Smart Mine it seems that all mods are applied to a single mine. I think this will cause a lot of metagame annoyances. Let's say you deployed multiple mines, your enemy, a super smart space mage, wants to reach you and can decide to walk a path that detonates a "regular" mine or a path that detonates a mine with the Targeting Mine mod. Now the GM has to decide, do they want to dissatisfy the player or make the super smart space mage a fool. Most probably the latter. But I don't think this is a fun choice that gets anyone at the table excited, it's just a necessity that steals away agency from the player to the GM.
I think mods should always be applied to all deployed mines.
c) I love the Gravitic Mines and I think there should be more utility mines. Shock Mines for stunning, Flash Mines for blinding, Black Hole mines for entangling, ... yeah, I know, getting pretty close to stationary granade territory here.
Bonus: Apart from that, I find it a bit confusing, that some mods are printed as part of the deploy action. This makes it look like you always need to deploy a new mine, in order to activate those, which I don't think is what's intended:
You can Modify one of your deployed mines at a range of 30 feet, modding the mine as if it were a grenade or with the following new mods.
I think the mods should be moved to the Mine section, instead of Deploy.

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So, I just re-read the "Deploy Mine" action, and had a thought about the way it was phrased. It said you deploy a mine to an adjacent square (or for two actions a square within 30ft) It didn't say "on the ground". I think they default can fly. because remember, especially in this new meta that should be more willing to have flight and 3d combat you have 26 adjacent squares, not eight.

kaid |

My major problem with mines is they require input from you to be detonated. Or at least that's how I read it. It isn't "an enemy steps into a space containing a mine" triggering an automatic detonation, you must, through action or reaction, detonate the mine yourself.
There is a later feat that does allow you to set them up as proximity mines that go off when something enters or leaves its area of effect. I think it was a choice so they could be more powerful than snares.

kaid |

Mines seem very action hungry. In a moving fight or big room, you'll need to deploy, redeploy and activate repeatedly.
They do but they also seem to get a lot of feats to improve that over time to drop some for free, drop multiples at once, move deploy. Overall for a trapper type class it seems at least on first read like it has some good support to do their job.

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So, I just re-read the "Deploy Mine" action, and had a thought about the way it was phrased. It said you deploy a mine to an adjacent square (or for two actions a square within 30ft) It didn't say "on the ground". I think they default can fly. because remember, especially in this new meta that should be more willing to have flight and 3d combat you have 26 adjacent squares, not eight.
I personally find it unconvincing that the Mines can fly by default; gravity works by default and rare is the occasion where the rules text has to specify the effects of normal gravity.
The Necromancer's Create Thrall also has a target of a square within 30 ft, but virtually nobody was arguing they don't fall if created in the air (iirc, the hilarity of that mental image came up at least once).I'd be on board for Mines that hover baseline and can be moved into the air at 3rd level. But the book has to specify that functionality somewhere IMO.

Xenocrat |

I think there should be the possibility to exclude friends from the detonation without using a mod. Accidentally hurting your friends with your main feature is never fun.
Intentionally doing it, on the other hand...
The author of the Spell Protection Protocol spell understood this. Here, have some extra protection against my Fireball, as a treat.

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I was "virtually nobody" regarding the thralls question, and given that they specify in that playtest that one of the three things they are made of is "Spirit" I maintain there is no reason they can't.
Further, this is a world where flying vehicles are normal. Why wouldn't you be able to make the mines fly? Give me a mechanical and narrative reason why the mines cannot be placed in air. They did not say "On the ground in a square adjacent to you" they just said a square adjacent to you.
Also, They did explain the effects of gravity in that very section of this very playtest. Because unlike Pathfinder, Gravity is NOT a given.

Justnobodyfqwl |
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I think taking the stance of "prove to me it's NOT true" is not helpful.
This is a game made by people from earth, a planet where mines are very famous for being placed onto the ground and laying still until triggered.
That is the assumption the average person has, and frankly it would be comically bad writing to say "mines can float in midair, and we expected people to intuit that". It would take one sentence to clarify "mines can float in midair". It's a perfectly reasonable thing to include. Not to intuit.

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Except unless you take a feat they don't trigger except by your input, unlike the real world where you don't trigger mines actively, they get triggered by someone stepping on them, or disturbing a tripwire.
I think this is us thinking two dimensionally in a game being designed to be three dimensional.
and neither of us can "prove" anything. Unless the Dev's weigh in with an official ruling, it's all about what your table would allow. and I'm sorry, my imagination can conceive of floating mines in a game that has been repeatedly stated to allow flying much more commonly than it's predecessor.

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I was "virtually nobody" regarding the thralls question, and given that they specify in that playtest that one of the three things they are made of is "Spirit" I maintain there is no reason they can't.
Further, this is a world where flying vehicles are normal. Why wouldn't you be able to make the mines fly? Give me a mechanical and narrative reason why the mines cannot be placed in air. They did not say "On the ground in a square adjacent to you" they just said a square adjacent to you.
Also, They did explain the effects of gravity in that very section of this very playtest. Because unlike Pathfinder, Gravity is NOT a given.
Flying vehicles have a flight speed listed in their stat block. That's precisely my point. Things don't fly unless something specifically says it does.
The base jetpack is a 5th level item. A flying weapon is a 12th level item. Wing augments are 3rd.It doesn't make sense to assert that a character or item can do something merely because the rules don't say they can't.
Yeah, gravity is defined. And outside of zero gravity, unattended objects fall.

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Huh, sorry Xenocrat. despite being a military brat, I never knew much about weapons and explosives. That was actually cool to know.
RAW they don't have to fall. Will it be clarified by the dev team, maybe, but I think there's plenty of room to argue that you can throw a mine to hover in the air both narratively and mechanically. I get that you don't like that, and it goes against your assumptions of the system, but you've yet to make a good mechanical or narrative argument as to why they can't. just "That's not realistic" in this space/fantasy setting.

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Huh, sorry Xenocrat. despite being a military brat, I never knew much about weapons and explosives. That was actually cool to know.
RAW they don't have to fall. Will it be clarified by the dev team, maybe, but I think there's plenty of room to argue that you can throw a mine to hover in the air both narratively and mechanically. I get that you don't like that, and it goes against your assumptions of the system, but you've yet to make a good mechanical or narrative argument as to why they can't. just "That's not realistic" in this space/fantasy setting.
I never said anything about realism; every point mentioned was regarding the difference between the system being permissive and not dismissive. Ie: Broadly speaking, you can't do anything in the game unless the game says you can. Opposed to something more akin to your argument of it not being specifically denied by game.
Magic isn't realistic. Combat rounds aren't realistic. Extradimensional planes aren't realistic.
But all of those things are taken as givens at face value by the player base because the books tell us specifically that that's the way things are in the world we're agreeing to play in, together. I have no problem with the reality of the game differing from the reality I live in.
The problem I have is when attempts are made to justify something as being one way due soley to the absence of something saying it isn't that way.
When something isn't specifically defined, the most useful way to determine its characteristics are to look at it from a base level and understand it in the context of the game.
What is a mine? It's an object. One which is deployed to a location to be later detonated.
Can it fly or hover? Without specifics saying it can, how do other objects behave?
Well, there are flying vehicles.
Are there also non-flying vehicles? Yes.
So without context, a vehicle, which is not specified to be a flying vehicle, should be considered not to be a flying vehicle? I guess so.
So then a mine, whose flying capabilites are not specified, should be considered a non-flying mine?

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So in Starfinder, if I say we need to get on a ship, you assume I mean a boat to go across water? Or do you assume a FLYING space ship?
I'm not hearing a mechanic or narrative reason for them not to be able to be deployed in mid air. I'm hearing you say "You're pretending wrong, you have to pretend the way I pretend."
I get it, at your table, with you as GM, that wouldn't be okay, mines would be deployed on the ground only. and your table, that's fair and reasonable.
I'm saying unless the rules are clarified, why limit ourselves to that perspective?

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So in Starfinder, if I say we need to get on a ship, you assume I mean a boat to go across water? Or do you assume a FLYING space ship?
I'm not hearing a mechanic or narrative reason for them not to be able to be deployed in mid air. I'm hearing you say "You're pretending wrong, you have to pretend the way I pretend."
I get it, at your table, with you as GM, that wouldn't be okay, mines would be deployed on the ground only. and your table, that's fair and reasonable.
I'm saying unless the rules are clarified, why limit ourselves to that perspective?
That's a fair counterpoint. However, "ship", within the context of the world we're agreeing to play in, carries a different meaning than the one we would use on Earth. The definition of which is widely supported by a common pop culture understanding.
Insofar as we have seen, the same does not apply to mine. In fact, even in most science fiction settings, Mines typically float: in space. Which currently aligns with how the files define gravity. Anti-personnel mines deployed into a region with normal gravity should not be expected to float.Neverminding that "ship" is shortened for "Spaceship" or "Starship".
I continue to agree with you that narratively there's nothing wrong with floating out flying Mines. But the narrative doesn't define how objects in the game-world behave. The rules do.
Please stop misrepresenting my arguments.
Why limit ourselves to that perspective?
Because any other perspective and you're not playing the same game, anymore.

Xenocrat |

One other problem with mines is that you can take drone feats to have three different successive AOE options on a drone, although you'll probably only need two. Why waste my time deploying and detonating mines when I could make my drone zap them with electricity, shred them with blades, or thruster stomp them for basically the same damage and still have other capabilities?
Honorable mention to the turret that blows itself up for the same damage in a 20' radius instead of 10' radius once it's taken enough hits to be broken.

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Okay, you've accepted that Narratively there isn't a problem. How about mechanically. Does it break some power scaling for the adjacent square to be above your character? or the thirty foot one to be in the air?
Again, you make an assumption, but there is no reason that assumption MUST be true. and again, I am going to admit, your assumption is not unreasonable. and again, if I were a player at a table you were GMing, I wouldn't have pushed this past your first no.
I'm not misrepresenting your arguments. I'm pointing out that you keep insisting that your assumption MUST be true. I'm asking you to defend that with a mechanical or narrative reason.
also, how does allowing me to place a mine ten feet in the air make the game NOT starfinder?

Xenocrat |

I think mine should be tiny antigrav units that stick/move in the air whether they currently do or are intended to.
On the other hand it won't really make that much of a difference. Flight is still effectively stunning yourself out of an action to avoid melee (or low altitude mines), most difficult terrain, and effective cover. It's not actually a good idea unless you've got a really high flight speed that synergies with some other abilties/specific terrain (hello dragons).
Flying 30' movement mines still aren't going to help you against the guys with 80-100' range rifles shooting at you two increments away whether they're on the ground or in the air.

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Okay, you've accepted that Narratively there isn't a problem. How about mechanically. Does it break some power scaling for the adjacent square to be above your character? or the thirty foot one to be in the air?
Again, you make an assumption, but there is no reason that assumption MUST be true. and again, I am going to admit, your assumption is not unreasonable. and again, if I were a player at a table you were GMing, I wouldn't have pushed this past your first no.
I'm not misrepresenting your arguments. I'm pointing out that you keep insisting that your assumption MUST be true. I'm asking you to defend that with a mechanical or narrative reason.
also, how does allowing me to place a mine ten feet in the air make the game NOT starfinder?
I think it probably does not break power scaling. I think it's a perfectly reasonable house rule.
I do believe my assumption that if the rules don't say you can do something, you can only do it if the GM says you can. I cannot fathom attempting to play either of the 'Finder games where that is not the baseline assumption.
Nothing in the rules say an android can't shoot lasers from their eyes. It's not unthinkable that they could, though. It's the understanding that the lack of positive confirmation that an android can shoot lasers from their eyes that informs is that they cannot, in fact, shoot lasers from their eyes.
The understanding that the rules being silent on a topic does have some meaning is the basis for my argument.
"It's plausible that such a thing could exist in the game world" and "It doesn't break game balance" are not perspectives trying to persuade that that's the way things are; they're perspectives trying to persuade the way things could or should be. And that's great. Mines being so ineffective vs flying things to the point of incurring house rules in the playtest is valuable feedback.

S. J. Digriz |

I am with the folks who say that you can deploy mines mid air (as long as the square is adjacent to you with a 1 action deployment, or within 30' with a two action deployment). Spells work in a similar fashion. Also, in the context of a civilization with ready access to gravity control technology, having the mechanic deploy mines that hover in place makes sense.
That being said, this same issue seems to exist for snares in pathfinder 2e. The general rules for snares don't say they need to be on the ground, though if you read the descriptions for specific snares, there is an implication that certain snares do need generally be on the ground. There are many snares that only need some sort of trip line, and I'd allow them to be deployed in the air if one could string a trip line between trees or the like.

Justnobodyfqwl |
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Regardless of where they are, were, are going or might be….I’m still waiting to find out if they can be targeted and destroyed….
This feels a lot like the Necromancer/Runesmith playtest with zero dev input to fairly basic questions across both classes…
The first paragraph describing mines mentions "Your mines are shielded and can’t detonate from taking damage."
It's been only a day, I don't expect any developer input yet.

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 |

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:The first paragraph describing mines mentions "Your mines are shielded and can’t detonate from taking damage."Regardless of where they are, were, are going or might be….I’m still waiting to find out if they can be targeted and destroyed….
This feels a lot like the Necromancer/Runesmith playtest with zero dev input to fairly basic questions across both classes…
Yes. So they can take damage. At least narratively. And not detonate. That is well different from being actively targeted, or destroyed. Just looking for some clarification.
[It's been only a day, I don't expect any developer input yet.
Sure. I’ll wait.

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And Ectar, because I don't want to be petulant, I'm biting down on some "um, actually", but we agree on the most important parts: The GM gets ultimate say. If GM says mines have to be deployed on ground, or on surface (like mounted to a wall or soemthing) I'm not going to argue any further. and there is no narrative or mechanical reason against mid-air deployment. It does go against most assumptions.
I get that you think I'm rules-lawyering to get an outcome the devs did not intend. And I recognize that taken to extremes that kind of behavior can be toxic and exploitative of the GM and other players. That is why I invited the mechanical question. I know I'm not as smart as the devs, and if this did cause a mechanical advantage that was unintended, I don't want that.