After playtesting the new classes a fair amount, I think it's time I wrote some playtest notes. This is something I've done for other classes and elements of the Starfinder playtest, and you should be able to find the list below. I'll split my post into sections, spoiler them, and add a TL;DR just so it's all a bit easier to navigate.
I ran my playtests mostly across levels 1-15, as I ran them mostly using the official Starfinder playtest scenarios and field tests. I ran some playtests at higher levels using Pathfinder content, but treated those as secondary to the playtest scenarios.
I ran my Technomancer with a variety of party compositions, mostly with just other Starfinder classes. I eventually started adding Pathfinder classes into the mix, and treated those playtests as secondary.
I tested my Technomancer using different Starfinder ancestries, including ancestries from the Galaxy Guide.
I ran the scenarios RAW for the most part, only adjudicating when something broke or was missing from the rules (or the class's core features). I then started playing with certain parameters, chiefly the Techomancer's own features, and treated those findings as secondary.
As per standard, I maxed out the Technomancer's Intelligence, then Dexterity, then Constitution, and finally Wisdom.
I settled for the most part on a laser rifle to "cast gun". While trying out different subclasses, I went out of my way to try to accommodate their item needs when possible, such as buying a spell gem at level 1 for the Viper subclass.
TL;DR I ran the Technomancer through a series of playtest encounters from low- to fairly high level, using a variety of ancestries and party compositions. After a little over a week, I started experimenting with altering the Technomancer's features to see how that would affect their gameplay.
Overclock Gear:
There's a lot to be said about Overclock Gear, in my opinion. It might not seem it, as the mechanic doesn't have all that much text to it, but that I think is part of it:
First, let's talk cost. Overclock Gear requires you to cast a non-cantrip spell, which means that your choice is to either cast a slot spell, which is particularly costly at low level when you have only 2 to begin with, or to cast your focus spellshape for the sole purpose of activating this feature. I order to overclock consistently, I ended up using the latter, which on some level did feel hack-y and thus thematically appropriate, but for the most part felt wasteful, especially when there wasn't much else I could do on that turn.
At low level, DPS++'s weapon overclock felt genuinely really good to use, as my attacks were hitting more often and dealing a higher minimum amount of damage, and it was one of the few overclocks I could put to immediate use by Striking as my third action. At higher levels, though, my Strikes were so weak compared to other things I could do that I ended up overclocking mostly just for Jailbreak Spell.
Fortrun was more consistently useful for its +1 to AC, if not its retaliatory damage on a ranged and extremely squishy class.
ServoShell was literally useless due to not having a permanent tech minion.
Viper ended up having the most useful overclock at higher level (in fact, the versatility it provided was perhaps a little too strong), but at low level was prohibitively expensive to use due to the cost of spell gems.
Although activating Overclock Gear is necessary to use Jailbreak Spell, I mostly ignored this at low level, because I simply did not have the resources to do both consistently enough (and especially not if I used my focus spellshape to overclock). Instead, I stayed overclocked for as long as I could when using DPS++ and Fortrun. At higher levels, though, I started overclocking purely to jailbreak, and disliked this, as overclocking felt like the only aspect of the Technomancer that actually has them use magic to interface with tech and not the other way round, and I didn't enjoy it being used mostly just as a means to something else.
One thing to note is that if you jailbreak a slot spell, you can Overclock Gear on the same turn to regain your overclock effect. This will effectively negate the benefit of jailbreaking as a free action, but lets you save resources. This is one of those hackier elements of the class that I found both nifty and a little awkward at the same time.
A more minor gripe I have with the mechanic is that you can overclock any gear, not just tech gear. This means you could overclock analog or even archaic gear, which to me feels like a bit of a thematic miss.
In general, I felt there was something lacking to this mechanic. I really wanted to overclock more stuff, and just interact with tech a lot more. Instead, I had one designated way of overclocking, with other "overclock" effects just being focus spells with the word in the name and no mechanical relation.
TL;DR Overclocking felt underbaked, and more as a means to the end that is jailbreaking than its own mechanic. Although Viper's overclock shines at high level and DPS++ at low level, the mechanic felt inconsistent in its power scaling, costly to use at low level, and ultimately really limited on what is meant to be the tech caster. I really feel this mechanic could use more love, as I think there's so many different ways to overclock, so much more tech to play with, and the current overclock focus spells could be tied into Overclock Gear better too.
Jailbreak Spell:
I have a fair bit to say about Jailbreak Spell, which I also discussed in a separate thread, so I thought I'd give the feature its own section here:
For starters, and to make one thing clear, this feature is very fun to use. This is by far the most powerful way of modifying a spell in 2e so far, and feels like a major power-up when you get to add lots of riders to your spell (and as a free action, too!).
The big caveat here is that this feature is very fun to use... when you get to actually use it. At low levels, I barely used Jailbreak Spell at all, because setting it up typically requires spending a spell slot, and you need another slot spell to get the most bang for your buck. At 3rd level in particular, I had only 5 spell slots to work with for the entire day or scenario, so despite how strong the feature felt, I couldn't justify spending a huge portion of my limited resources on it.
While Jailbreak Spell is quite impactful, it's also fairly complex and takes some getting used to. On my first few uses, it took me a little while to track all the moving parts, particularly when factoring in subclass features. Every spellshape also ended up becoming quite a bit more complex and wordy as a result of needing a special jailbreak entry.
On a similar note, I also felt that some jailbreak options were more restricted than the mechanic would suggest. The jailbreak effect on Incognito Spell, for instance, could have been an amazing spellshape on its own, and in practice felt like a poor fit for a base spellshape that's meant to allow spells to be cast unnoticed.
TL;DR Jailbreak Spell succeeds at its goal of providing a spellshape that feels super-powerful, but at the cost of significantly complicating the Technomancer's spellshapes and amplifying their low-level resource problems. As much as I like the mechanic, I question its place as a core class feature.
Core Class:
Splitting my feedback on the class's core chassis, subclasses, and feats for readability:
I'm personally actually quite a fan of the class having lower base stats than the Starfinder playtest classes. This new baseline feels much more appropriate, and while the class felt squishier than others, that squishiness wasn't a dealbreaker by any means either, and made sense on the Technomancer. I'd even argue that the class could stand to lose its light armor proficiency and work as a full cloth caster, much like a Pathfinder Wizard.
Much like Pathfinder's Wizard, however, I'm not a big fan of the 3 + Int mod skill proficiencies at level 1. Just because an arcane caster uses Intelligence doesn't mean in my opinion that they should have less than the minimum number of skills; their Intelligence and higher number of trained skills I think is meant to be part of their advantages. Not a dealbreaker, though, and more of a pet peeve.
My experience with the Technomancer's spell slots is as follows: on its own, I actually quite like that the Technomancer isn't yet another 4-slot caster, and think it's okay for the class to have fewer spell slots. However, the class is chock-full of mechanics that push them to use spell slots, which made them feel resource-starved at low level, and I don't think those mechanics necessarily make up the gap in power either. That, however, I think is a problem with the class's other mechanics, not their spell slots, and I'd personally want them to have less dependence on limited resources at low level than more spell slots, as I think they do fine with those at higher levels.
Download Spell is effectively what I've wanted from Pathfinder's Wizard and Spell Substitution for a long time, and the reasons why are clear on the Technomancer. It feels fantastic to switch to a reliable and thematically-fitting spell on the spot, and this has subtly been the most impactful mechanic on the Technomancer in my opinion on several encounters. It definitely does feel like the Technomancer's hacking into magic.
The Technomancer's focus spellshapes feel great... at high level. When you have spell slots to spare, it feels great to have lots of ways to modify your spells. When you don't, it means your only resourceless ways to contribute are the bare minimum of guns and cantrips, and even with overclocking that does not feel very good. It also means that with overclocking and jailbreaking, a huge portion of the Technomancer's power is contingent on their use of spell slots, which prevents them from making full use of their mechanics at low level.
While the Technomancer's ability to hack spells definitely felt well-established, their identity as an actual technomancer, i.e. a character that uses magic to act on tech, did not. Overclocking is the only core mechanic that lends itself to this, and I think it falls short for the reasons detailed in its own section.
Reinforcing the above I think is the class's DC. It's bog-standard for casters in that it remains stuck at trained, which means the Technomancer's accuracy with grenades and many other tech weapons drops off quite significantly over time. Adding insult to injury, the Witchwarper gets a class DC proficiency that scales up to master rank, making the latter better at using many kinds of tech than the actual Technomancer.
TL;DR The core Technomancer in many ways felt like they had everything I always wanted from the Wizard, with a better Spell Substitution mechanic and lots of spellshapes to begin with. I think this sits well with their lower durability, and leads to a class that feels like they get a lot of control over their own magic, which is great for a caster that's being put forth as a spellhacker. However, the class has way too much pressure overall to use spell slots and poor resourceless fallback tools, which does not sit well with their 3 spell slots per rank. Additionally, the core class didn't really feel like a technomancer, at least not the view I had where they could interact with tech in plenty of different and impactful ways.
Programming Languages:
When playtesting the Technomancer's different subclasses, I felt there was enough variance to them that it was worth talking a bit about each of them individually:
I'd first like to start by mentioning how much I love the subclass names. The references to actual programming and scripting languages are fantastic, and really helped sell the class's theme in my opinion.
Although spellshapes can be quite useful, I did not get that much use out of the subclass spellshape feats. Again, I think this is because the Technomancer has too few spell slots and is pushed to spend them in too many different ways, which led me to feel that the class had all of their eggs in one spellshaping basket when they could have benefited from a little bit of diversification.
DPS++ felt like one of the more functional subclasses at low level, mainly because their overclock felt genuinely impactful and their cache spells were pretty directly useful. However, thermoelectric phase change does not interact with supercharge weapon, the subclass's 1st-rank cache spell, so I started off using that focus spellshape purely to overclock. At higher levels, by contrast, I ended up overclocking purely to jailbreak, as my Strikes felt really limp and inaccurate even when overclocked.
Fortrun succeeds at making you feel pretty durable, particularly when you can give yourself a +2 bonus to your AC (+1 status from protection, +1 circumstance from overclocking). However, same as with DPS++, there is no interaction between this subclass's focus spellshape and its own 1st-rank cache spell (nor any of its other cache spells, for that matter), which reinforced the notion that a lot of the class was clashing with bits of itself, especially at low level. My small handful of attempts to test out the retaliatory damage ended up with my character getting chunked and dealing only piddly damage, so I ended up ignoring that entirely and instead using a jailbroken Denial of Safety (which, again, has no interaction with the subclass's cache spells) to yeet myself out of an enemy's melee reach if they ever got that close. I could've made more use of overclock armor to protect my HP and active defense firewall to prep a nasty spell and get more bang for my buck, but I honestly believe both work better as situational precautions rather than tools you'd use to actively put yourself in the front line.
ServoShell is just not fit for purpose. The Technomancer has no inherent means of obtaining a minion that can be Commanded, rather than Sustained, so its overclock effect is nonfunctional. Summon minion, while obviously appropriate for the subclass, makes it impossible to use on a turn where you want to overclock (which you might want to do to jailbreak). Signal relay has the benefit over DPS++ and Fortrun of actually synergizing with the subclass's 1st-rank cache spell, except it is so overly reliant on it that you must summon a minion first before getting to make any use out of the spellshape, a significant resource cost that is far too large at low level.
Finally, Viper I'd say is the subclass that comes out on top, but only at higher levels. At low levels, even your lowest-rank spell gems will be prohibitively expensive to buy constantly, even when you get to stretch their use out a little more with dynamic frequency scaling. When you do get to consistently use spell gems, though, Viper becomes immensely versatile, and because their subclass features actually work with each other, the subclass feels really good to use. At higher levels I ended up becoming a bit of a do-everything caster, particularly with higher-rank focus spellshapes letting me heighten non-arcane spells from spell gems and temporarily add them to my spell cache. I will say, however, that the jailbreak benefit dropped off quite significantly in effectiveness at higher levels given that I was making Area Fires with my perma-trained class DC, so that didn't feel so good.
TL;DR The Technomancer's subclasses have a lot of potential, and can genuinely impact the class's playstyle, but are also incredibly janky, especially at low level. ServoShell in particular felt almost like I was playing with no subclass at all, and Viper struggled with gem costs at early levels before shooting into hyper-effectiveness at higher levels. There is a shocking lack of synergy between many of the subclasses' spellshapes and their own cache spells, particularly at low levels, and I would have much preferred to have had feats that actually benefited my subclass rather than more spellshapes.
Feats:
I mostly focused on level 1-14 feats during my playtests, owing to the level range at which I mostly played:
First, let's start with the positives: there's a vast number of different spellshapes, many of which feel impactful and novel, and this makes me very happy. I've always wanted more spellshapes for Pathfinder's Wizard, as I think there's a lot of untapped potential to those, and it's good to see that potential tapped here, even if it's on another arcane caster class.
Second, and this I think bears mentioning: the feat names are awesome. Starfinder's ability names are at their best when they lean into the material they dig into and reference stuff we players are familiar with, in my opinion, and as a programmer I found it particularly appealing to identify and recognize all of the tech references. This I think really helps drive home the Technomancer's flavor.
On the more critical side, I was very disappointed to see so few tech-centric feats. The bulk of the Technomancer's feats are about spellshaping or playing with spells, and my expectation was that the class would also have many feats that would let them interact with tech-based items, hazards, environments, and so on in unique ways, much like how Pathfinder's Druid and Ranger have tons of feats that let them interact with natural features. This to me reinforced the notion that the Technomancer wasn't really living up to their name, and felt more like a Wizard in space with a bit of tech flavoring.
Adding to the above, it didn't really feel like I had many feat paths to focus on my gear if I wanted to. There are a small handful of gun and grenade feats, the latter of which struggle against the class's perma-trained class DC, and that's about it.
There is a sore lack of feats for tech familiars and robot companions, which is all the weirder considering how the Mechanic has a robot companion feat line. Either would've been a great 1st-level feat for a ServoShell Technomancer and would've solved a lot of their problems.
An issue I ran into with spellshape feats was how packed each one was. Each feat was basically two spellshapes rolled into one, and I feel there could've been a simpler way to do this that would have avoided that kind of bloat. Specifically, Double Spellshape at 4th level feels like it could've worked well as the baseline model to follow for jailbreaking.
On a much more minor note, Sudo Spell does not do what the name suggests it does. "Sudo" is a command that's generally known for running programs with maximum user privileges, and has no inherent link to duplication. It feels like "Copy and Paste" would've been more appropriate for that feat, and "Sudo Spell" could be a fitting name for the Root Level Access feat that gives you an extra 10th-rank spell.
TL;DR The Techomancer's feats offer a ton of fun spellshapes and have quite possibly some of the best feat names I've ever seen. However, there is a serious lack of feats that interact with tech of any kind, and in general it feels like there was far too much of a focus on manipulating spells, which feels more appropriate for a Pathfinder Wizard than a class that's meant to also have an affinity with tech in the same way a Druid has an affinity with nature.
The big TL;DR to all of this is that based on my experience, I think the Technomancer needs a lot more work unfortunately. They're among the weakest and least functional classes I have ever playtested at low level, and even at higher levels I never really felt the class was fully living up to their fantasy. Part of this is because I expected the class to interact much more with tech, when in practice the class hyperfocuses on spellshapes and uses its overclock mechanic more as a means to that end, rather than as its own fully-fledged aspect. There is far too much pressure on the class to use their limited spell slots on their class mechanics, and I feel this problem would still exist at low level even if the class were a 4-slot caster. My biggest recommendation would be to take at least a few eggs out of that spellshaping basket, and instead put them into the class's tech aspect, if only so that they can have more useful abilities at level 1.
If interested, here are the notes I compiled on adjustments I made to the Technomancer that worked well for me:
Adjustments and Recommendations:
I experimented with converting Overclock Gear and Download Spell into single-action focus spells, dropping their current restrictions on frequency or needing to cast a non-cantrip spell. This in my opinion made the Technomancer feel much more functional at low level, because they could overclock much more easily and without added resource expenditure, giving them the fallback tools they currently sorely lack. In general, it made the class more flexible and I think made the focus spellshape more palatable, as it didn't feel like you were being locked out of a useful focus spell at low level.
I experimented with swapping out the spellshape feats on a few of the subclasses and instead giving them feats that synergized with their other mechanics: with ServoShell, I gave them a basic robot companion, and that made their spellshapes and overclock so much more functional from the get-go. With Viper, I homebrewed a feat that let them choose a 1st-rank arcane spell, and become able to create a 1st-rank spell containing that arcane spell for free each day: this made a massive difference as well, because it allowed the subclass to function without imposing a huge credit drain on itself. My recommendation at this point would be to take out all spellshape feats on the subclasses, and replace them with other feats more directly beneficial to those subclasses.
I tried splitting up spellshapes and their jailbreak effects into separate spellshapes that I could then mix and match with Jailbreak Spell, as with Double Spellshape. This definitely made the Technomancer more versatile, but also just gave them even more spellshapes to play with. I didn't experience anything unbalanced either, so I'd go as far as to say that cutting Jailbreak Spell as a core feature and instead having Double Spellshape be the way to mix and match spellshapes could make sense on the class.
I experimented with giving the Technomancer a class DC that scaled at the same rate as their spell DC. This generally did not actually make a huge difference, other than it made a few grenade-based features and feats more functional and meant grenades were always a viable option on the tech-based class. I do think this could be added to the base class without unbalancing it, and doing so I think would guarantee that it would interact properly with certain tech items.
TL;DR In my playtesting, I experimented with making the Technomancer less of a hyperfocused spellshaper, and instead turning some of their existing features into a deck of magic hacks that could be used without needing to expend spell slots. I also gave them a scaling class DC so they could use grenades better, and swapped their subclass spellshape feats with feats more directly synergistic with their subclass features. This in my experience led to a significantly more functional class, especially at low level, that felt like it could play at least a little more with tech. This may come down to taste, but I didn't feel the reduction in their spellshaping aspect that strongly, because at lower level I did not have enough spell slots to spellshape much anyway, and at higher levels I had so many spellshapes to choose from that I could easily become a master spellshaper if I so wished. Based on this, my recommendation would be to force less of a focus on spellshapes on the base class, and instead give them the tools they need to make more use of tech and still be effective at low level when not expending spell slots. Because many bits of tech don't use daily resources, and existing feats in 2e allow the generation of daily resources for free, I think the two go hand-in-hand.
Yeah, I personally think jailbreak spell is the coolest thing the class does, but I also agree that jailbreaks should maybe just be spellshapes and the feature allow you to mix and match two spellshapes
Idk about letting class DC scale to legendary, maybe master is fine enough, but I would say this also means DPS++ will still struggle to do anything with it's gun benefit later on and I don't think we can justify buffing their ability to hit with guns much at all
I also remember talking with you and talking about overclock becoming a focus spell, and probably same with download cache. The class starting with 2(or 3?) focus points. Jailbreak then still costs 1 extra action and a focus point to set up in order to apply to spellshapes to one spell, and does come at the cost of download cache and their subclass focus spell, whatever it ends up being. Not sure if it should remain a spellshape or become a tech focused spell
In some ways I think we should have two spells per rank of cache spells, but it's not a huge deal I don't think
The main thing though I think would help is still that I think they should get class specific feats for the computers skill to enhance their ability to interface with tech while not fighting for space with the other really cool class feats
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Thank you for taking the time to playtest so extensively! It's nice to see that your actual experiences and recommendations line up with the overall impressions I got from reading the class. It seems like SF2's first real dud (and the second 2e dud overall after the guardian), as it just doesn't have the fallback options and synergy that make casters feel good.
I was also really surprised by the lack of any unique exploration options (you mentioned druids as a point of comparison and I agree; being able to talk to machines the way a druid can talk to wildlife seems like given, so it's surprising we didn't get it), as well as the lack of a drone companion or reliable way to generate consumables to support their subclasses.
But yeah, the overall biggest issue seems to be too much focus on casting slotted spells one right after the other, meaning the class gains momentum slowly and burns out as soon as it gets going.
I was also really surprised by the lack of any unique exploration options (you mentioned druids as a point of comparison and I agree; being able to talk to machines the way a druid can talk to wildlife seems like given, so it's surprising we didn't get it), as well as the lack of a drone companion or reliable way to generate consumables to support their subclasses.
It just really butters my biscuit, because I was really enjoying the ways that Starfinder 2e lets you interact with tech in player options!
When the playtest rulebook launched, I was delighted at how many good "computer mage" style feats you could take. The android has feats that let them speak to other shortwave machines, or make machines glitch. Prismeni can make their words come through remote speakers, wirelessly hack systems, and even become a "Living Battery" that can charge batteries and power machines with an otherwise boring combat-only cantrip. (Living Battery is my serious contender for favorite feat in the game, btw)
Even options you wouldn't expect have REALLY cool ways of interacting with tech! I wouldn't have expected the Operative to be able to interact with computers as the "single target damage class", but the Infiltrator's Sabotage ability is fantastic! And something I haven't seen ANYONE acknowledge is that the new Tech Priest background from the Galaxy Guide doesn't give you a skill feat- instead you get to cast a 5th level (!!!) Speak With Computers once per day!
This all made me SUPER excited for what the Tech Classes could do, the Technomancer especially. While I figured the Mechanic would just get a version of the Metal Kineticist's ability to make any equipment in an action, I was REALLY excited for all of the cool new abilities that interact with tech and computers!
And they just...don't really have any? I know people have said "thats what the spell list is for", but that doesn't really work when it seems like everything BUT the technomancer can do cool tech stuff without spells. The Mystic doesn't need its spells to feel like a Team Mom Psychic Empath, the Mystic Bond does that. The Witchwarper doesn't need spells to feel like it is opening holes in reality, the Quantum Field does that.
It's strange to me, because I thought that the options in the Player Core would be LESS than what a Technomancer or Mechanic could do- not more.
Even the Akashic mystic has a 10th level permanent “talk to computers” feature that’s equivalent to old speak with plants/rocks spells and is potentially very powerful and at least very cool and fun.
