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Good Afternoon,
While browsing the new Playtest, I and others have encountered some errors or omissions that pose problems to our abilities to actually playtest the new classes. I'd like to gather them here where they can hopefully reach the devs and ideally get a response. This thread is not for things you don't like or you feel are too good/not good enough. If you know how it works even if it's frustrating, it doesn't belong here. The things below should provide good examples
1) We don't know how high level robot companions work.
- We're told Robot Companions follow the same rules as animal companions, but they don't use the same progression. Animal Companions follow a growth cycle of Young -> Mature -> Savage/Nimble -> Specialized. Based on the Mechanic's feats, we know that Robots have a growth cycle of Basic - > Mature - > Burly/Graceful -> Advanced - > Specialized. Now Basic is obviously the counterpart of Young, and Savage/Nimble are clearly counterparts to Burly/Graceful. But then we have a problem. Robot Companions become "Advanced" when you take Advanced Drone, a feat available at 14th level much like Specialized Companion. But we have a whole new tier at 18th level which uses the name of the animal companion's pinnacle! Further complicating matters, the feat to unlock the final tier of robot customization, Superior Customization, references a non-existant feat, "Superior Drone." But the superior customizations granted by the feat say they're only available to Specialized Robots. In fact, the elite Drone feat that upgrades your robot to a specialized companion also requires the non-existant Superior Drone feat!
2) Missing Technomancer Spell Cache Spell
- The 3rd rank Cache Spell for the DPS++ Programming language, Elecrotether, doesn't exist. It's quite possible that this is a renaming of the spell Gravity Tether from the playtest, but that's not going to show up if someone searches for something starting with "electro-"
3) Alakablam does not have a duration
- The 4th level Technomancer feat Alakablam does not have a duration. The feat is also too different from similar options like Bespell Strikes (which is a free action that doesn't care about consumables) to make a definitive judgement call.
4) The Dynamic Frequency Scaling Spell's Jailbreak doesn't make sense
-The Initial Hack spell for the Viper programming language, Dynamic Frequency Scaling, allows you to give a Spell Gem a second use after you use it, but indicates that the spellgem is destroyed if you use it a second time. The jailbreak effect says the spell gem only becomes broken on a critical failure, but there is no check involved. Was this supposed to refer to overcharging Spell Chips?
As others have pointed out, the action economy for ServoShell is a mess that makes the subclass unusable. It takes 3 actions to cast Summon Robot, so you can't overclock on the first round. If you sustain your summon and cast a two-action spell in order to overclock, you again can't overclock.
Some possible solutions are giving this subclass a tech familiar or reducing the action economy involved.
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I think a mechanic's Modify ability didn't get properly edited between play-test versions. So it says that you can mod an item, it lasts until the start of your next turn, and you can apply one of these mods. If you mod a second item, the mod on the first item falls off. Simple enough.
But then the level 13 ability Enduring mods mentions "This mod doesn’t count against your limit." What Limit? And the level 18 feat again mentions counting against a 'limit' of mods?
I think Enduring mod should just say "Choose one item you carry. During your daily preparations, you can enhance that item AS IF you had used one of your known mods on it. This lasts until your next daily preparations, and does not prevent you from further using your modify ability on other items."
The way the mechanic class's deploy mines ability works with a number of class feats needs clarification.
The deploy mines activity can be performed with one or two actions, however it looks like there are a number of class feats that are only balanced, power wise, if deploy actions were a 1 action activity.
The following are some of the feats that may not be properly balanced if deploy mines were executed as the 2 action version:
Instant deployment
Mobile deployment
Double deployment
For example, double deployment and mobile deployment both would let you compress 4 actions into 2, saving 2 actions, but most all similar class feats from other classes only save 1 action, and when they do save 2 actions, they usually have a restriction attached to them.
Also note that once you start combining these feats with some of the other mechanic class feats, you can do a very large amount of damage even at low level. Consider, for example, double deployment combined with proximity alert mines or double detonation. With double detonation, I could do 1d6 + my class level in d6s plus bonuses by using double deployment with the 30' range 2-action as 1 action, then double detonation as another action, and I would have an action left. With proximity alert mines I can do the same thing with 1 action (once something in the area moves), and since there is no limit on how many mines detonate a round, I could use 3 actions and 6 mines to deal 36d6 + bonus damage x6 in a 10' burst at 10th level.
There are a lot of ways to clarify these feats, but I'd suggest something like the following:
Instant deployment and mobile deployment both specify the one action version of deploy mines.
Double deployment takes 3 actions if you use the 2 action version of deploy mines, and 2 actions if you use the 1 action version.
Double deployment takes 3 actions if you use the 2 action version of deploy mines, and 2 actions if you use the 1 action version.
Two actions to do the 1 action deploy twice can already be done without the feat from my understanding? So would only exist as a three action if they followed that suggestion.
I think a mechanic's Modify ability didn't get properly edited between play-test versions. So it says that you can mod an item, it lasts until the start of your next turn, and you can apply one of these mods. If you mod a second item, the mod on the first item falls off. Simple enough.
But then the level 13 ability Enduring mods mentions "This mod doesn’t count against your limit." What Limit? And the level 18 feat again mentions counting against a 'limit' of mods?
I think Enduring mod should just say "Choose one item you carry. During your daily preparations, you can enhance that item AS IF you had used one of your known mods on it. This lasts until your next daily preparations, and does not prevent you from further using your modify ability on other items."
The mod limit I believe is one. By default if you mod one item then mod a different item before the start of your next turn the first item loses its mod. Enduring mod lets you mod something that lasts all day so you can still do your 1 mod per round on other things. The wording is feat proofing and future proofing for mods that let you mod two things at the same time or feats that may let you maintain more than one mod at a time.
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The mod limit I believe is one. By default if you mod one item then mod a different item before the start of your next turn the first item loses its mod. Enduring mod lets you mod something that lasts all day so you can still do your 1 mod per round on other things. The wording is feat proofing and future proofing for mods that let you mod two things at the same time or feats that may let you maintain more than one mod at a time.I think a mechanic's Modify ability didn't get properly edited between play-test versions. So it says that you can mod an item, it lasts until the start of your next turn, and you can apply one of these mods. If you mod a second item, the mod on the first item falls off. Simple enough.
But then the level 13 ability Enduring mods mentions "This mod doesn’t count against your limit." What Limit? And the level 18 feat again mentions counting against a 'limit' of mods?
I think Enduring mod should just say "Choose one item you carry. During your daily preparations, you can enhance that item AS IF you had used one of your known mods on it. This lasts until your next daily preparations, and does not prevent you from further using your modify ability on other items."
Then I suggest the mod class ability says "You are limited to one mod at a time, unless other class feats or abilities change that." or something to that effect so that it is more clear.
Then I suggest the mod class ability says "You are limited to one mod at a time, unless other class feats or abilities change that." or something to that effect so that it is more clear.The mod limit I believe is one. By default if you mod one item then mod a different item before the start of your next turn the first item loses its mod. Enduring mod lets you mod something that lasts all day so you can still do your 1 mod per round on other things. The wording is feat proofing and future proofing for mods that let you mod two things at the same time or feats that may let you maintain more than one mod at a time.I think a mechanic's Modify ability didn't get properly edited between play-test versions. So it says that you can mod an item, it lasts until the start of your next turn, and you can apply one of these mods. If you mod a second item, the mod on the first item falls off. Simple enough.
But then the level 13 ability Enduring mods mentions "This mod doesn’t count against your limit." What Limit? And the level 18 feat again mentions counting against a 'limit' of mods?
I think Enduring mod should just say "Choose one item you carry. During your daily preparations, you can enhance that item AS IF you had used one of your known mods on it. This lasts until your next daily preparations, and does not prevent you from further using your modify ability on other items."
"Using your trusty custom rig, you quickly customize a piece of gear. Interact to draw, retrieve, or swap an item, then add one of the mods listed below to the item. The item remains modded until the start of your next turn, but the effect ends early if you use Modify again or if the item is destroyed or leaves your possession."
The wording on the ability seems reasonable. You can mod one thing and it lasts until the start of your next term. If you mod another thing in your turn the previous one ends. Enduring mod alters this so you get the one enduring mod and then can still use your mod action otherwise normally without cancelling the enduring mod.
Double deployment takes 3 actions if you use the 2 action version of deploy mines, and 2 actions if you use the 1 action version.Two actions to do the 1 action deploy twice can already be done without the feat from my understanding? So would only exist as a three action if they followed that suggestion.
Correct. Double deployment with 2x 1 action deploys should only take 1 actions, with 1x 2 action deploy and 1x 1 action deploy it should take 2 actions. Basically, it should save a character 1 action.
I just assume you can 2 action Deploy Mine with any of the Deploy Mine Feats.