Are Starfinder 2e classes too gimmick / complex?

[Paco_Laburantes]

I just played the starfinder society 1-00 mission the other day and I found that the classes seem a lot more complicated than their pathfinder brethren.

The soldier which seems to be the parallel to the fighter ironically is much more complicated with it's area fire ability. It's not just move, swing and swing again.

The mystic (the one I played) seems like a more finicky cleric with it's healing pool.

Solarian are weird fighters who swap stances?

And don't get me started on the witchwarper.

Envoy and Operative seem the most straightforward of the bunch.

[Squark]

The devlopers definitely did not want to make fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard in space, and on the whole, I think they did a decent job of that.

As far as class difficulty goes, I feel Mystic, Operative, and Envoy are pretty straightforward, Solarion and Soldier are a bit more complex, and witchwarpers are challenging on par with witch or wizard. I do think it's helpful to think of soldier less like a fighter and more like the Guardian or Champion- You're not a primary damage dealer, you're a tank.

[Dubious Scholar]

I view Soldier as kind of an attrition deal - you're dealing consistent damage to multiple enemies every turn while making it harder for them to hurt the party (both by soaking damage and by inflicting Suppressed). It doesn't really have a direct comparison... but Kineticist is probably one of the closer ones.

But mechanically, Operative is closer to Fighter (well, it's Gunslinger in space really, but).

[Justnobodyfqwl]

To be honest, I have a much easier time understanding the Starfinder classes!

Whenever I try to play PF2E, I feel like I have a hard the understanding the intent of a lot of classes. A lot of martials have damage boost ginmicks, but have a hard time communicating what's FUN about the class. Spellcasters will literally have 90% of their class power and features in spellcasting, which was ALSO incomprehensible to a new player.

But with Starfinder, what you call "gimmicks" feels like... actual core class features that tell you what the class does.

It's really good at teaching people about spellcasting through the Mystic (Spellcasters like to heal and buff, so your class has a healing buff) and the Witchwarper (Spellcaster like to use AoEs and debuff, so your class has an AoE debuff).

What's the difference between an Operative and a Soldier? One is the single target damage class, with high mobility and action compression. The other is the AoE martial debuff class, that tanks with heavy armor and two-handed weapons. How do you know this? Well, again, every class has a Big Distinct Action that allows their class to fulfill their fantasies.

I think this is honestly the biggest thing that hooked me on the game. It took me YEARS to understand why a Thaumaturge might be fun, and to be honest I STILL don't understand why anyone plays an Inventor. But I feel like every SF2E class has a 60 second elevator pitch that I like.

[Mangaholic13]

Dubious Scholar wrote:

But mechanically, Operative is closer to Fighter (well, it's Gunslinger in space really, but).

Eh, I'd argue, personally, that the Operative is more focused on damage than the Gunslinger. But that also might be how I view the two classes.

To me, a Gunslinger is getting to be a cowboy (even in more urban environments).
Operative though, is getting to be Solid Snake.

[kaid]

As complex at a glance the solarian seems in play they are pretty straight forward.

They have that whole cycling thing but mostly once you pick your feet it is pretty easy to just go with the flow. You don't have to worry about your weapon if you don't like how it is working you can just change it. You have a side arm that requires no hands so don't have to worry about figuring out hands and taking hands off something and wielding something else just 1 action shoot no fuss no muss. Same with shield if you want a shield they can put one up that again does not require any hands. Hell if you take free hand on your solar weapon solarians can basically never worry about free/open hand stuff.

Most of what they do is zoom up and lightsword things in melee or if necessary plink with their flare.

Soldiers at first glance have more going on than fighters but once you grasp the AOE weapon class DC thing it is pretty basic. Most rounds you are 2 action AOE +1 primary attack free action and then you have 1 action to move/reload/or some other skill action like intimidate.

A lot of the stuff that normally takes multiple stats to build around they can just do with con. Stack con aoe+primary attack stuff and win.

[Finoan]

Paco_Laburantes wrote:

I just played the starfinder society 1-00 mission the other day and I found that the classes seem a lot more complicated than their pathfinder brethren.

So... you haven't looked at Thaumaturge, Summoner, or Oracle, have you?

[Squiggit]

I think SF classes are designed to look more complex and nuanced than they actually are. Like-

The Soldier isn't 'move swing swing' ... but it often is just area fire + whatever, and its options for that third action slot never get that esoteric.

Likewise while a Solarian has this whole attunement system... its core chassis is just a fighter's without the bonus accuracy. You can make things more complicated with the right feat choices, but those are buy-ins that come in slowly as you level up, so it really eases you into it. At low levels the only thing making Solarians complicated is how bad they are.

And while a mystic's network can somewhat feel complicated, the granularity makes it a lot easier to use judiciously, which is something I've seen newer players struggle a bit with with a cleric's font.

In contrast, I've actually found despite feeling simple, the Envoy ends up being one of the more complicated classes in play because it lacks a clear gimmick like most classes. It's a martial with the worst basekit for being a martial and depending on your subclass choice your directives can be pretty situational, so your routine can be pretty unstable.

[keftiu]

I'd much sooner play a Mystic than a Cleric.

[Dubious Scholar]

Finoan wrote:

Paco_Laburantes wrote:

I just played the starfinder society 1-00 mission the other day and I found that the classes seem a lot more complicated than their pathfinder brethren.

So... you haven't looked at Thaumaturge, Summoner, or Oracle, have you?

Thaumaturge is literally "build-a-class" with the implements. They all grant potent abilities and let you decide what you want to be able to do on top of the basic chassis of "hit all the weaknesses with 1h weapons". It's solid, but the choice paralysis is real.

Summoner is martial and a spellcaster fused together and sharing actions. Possibly the class with the absolute most options in any given turn, even if a lot of enemies can be dealt with via "Boost Eidolon, beat them to death" routines.

Oracle... I haven't played or built and I know it has a lot of moving parts to track with focus points and curse progression and such.

The core PF2 classes are mostly pretty simple, sure. But I don't think they're dramatically simpler than Soldier is, outside of like... Fighter.

[Perpdepog]

Soldier is a really interesting class. The way it plays is really simple, "make enemy save against big weapon, don't fall down," but it's got lots of interesting little complexities under the hood that I am appreciating more and more as I learn more about it.

Like the fact that, while it doesn't advertise it super strongly, a soldier is a great switch-hitter. Only your Primary Target feature requires that you use Dex to hit, so a strength soldier who mixes it up with a big melee and heavy ranged weapon is super viable.
Likewise, soldiers can kind of ignore weapon proficiency, I think? If I'm remembering correctly your DC with Area weapons isn't affected by your weapon proficiency, so soldiers can use all the advanced Area weapons and just be concerned about their Primary Target attack. I mean, I'd obviously prefer that they had some method of being proficient with those weapons and it's a bit weird they're not, but it's still cool that soldiers have that flexibility.