A smattering of questions.

[puppygirlpitjob]

Hi all, I've got a group together and we're gonna be playing starfinder sometime soon, and I've come across a few things I'm not quite sure how to arbitrate myself while thinking about my character. So I was hoping you'd all be of help!

• 1) Is the level 8 soldier feat "Overwatch" meant to only work for automatic weapons or "dual wielding" soldiers? It says it lets you ignore unwieldy but the only unwieldy non-area weapons are sniper rifles (There are no unwieldy automatic weapons), and the area trait says it can't be used for things outside of area fire. Things like primary target fairly explicitly make an exception for themselves, but overwatch feels like its just shy of confirming that its an exception to that rule. I'm planning on using a flamethrower with it, but I'm not entirely sure if it works.

• 2) I'm looking to make a plated vesk, am I right in reading that I can have both plated vesk armour, enchanted with runes, and a flight suit with upgrades, at the same time? If so, I know the AC bonuses don't stack but whats the actual calculation? I assume its just the higher of the two AC bonuses and the lower of the two dex caps? How does that change when the armor becomes +1 or higher? Does it matter which set gets the +1 first? If I get a better flight suit (for the upgrade slots) does the AC bonus on it not ever matter? (also am I right in my math that no matter what a plated vesk is always -1 AC to any vesk with a similar stat spread?)

• 3) With the knight of golarions level 4 feat "Iomedae's shield", how does this work if one of the characters already has an active force field? (or any other situations where they may be two force fields in play at once)
  

Thanks in advance!

[Finoan]

1) It works for any weapons or unarmed attacks you happen to have. The requirement is that the enemy is Suppressed and does something to provoke the reaction.

The note about ignoring the Unweildy trait is not a requirement of the action as a whole. It is an added bonus that prevents it from failing to work with those Unweildy weapons.

2) The Plated Vesk armor is using Pathfinder-style runes for its upgrades instead of the Starfinder-style equipment grades. It would be best to stick to only one of those two systems. So you can use the Flight Suit for its upgrade slots and environmental protections and such, but ignore all of its other armor stats.

I haven't done the math on how the resulting AC shapes up in comparison to other options. I remember people were moaning about Automaton Reinforced Chassis for similar reasons at one point. I suspect that the game devs value always-on armor more than some of the players do.

3) I'm not seeing a solid rule for this. I might be missing something though. A common principle of the game is that different things that do the same or similar effects shouldn't stack. There is also an SFS note regarding having both Force Field and Shield Block available, for whatever that is worth.

So I would recommend one of two options. Either consider the Force Field effects to be a Duplicate Effect and only allow one of the effects to be active (using Iomedae's Shield would cause the ally's normal Force Field to deactivate and go into its cooldown, for example). Or allow them to take effect sequentially (If the enemy's attack burns through Iomedae's Shield entirely and ends that effect, then it can start working on the Force Field effect until that is also depleted. And then the character can Shield Block after that).

What I don't recommend is having both active and blocking damage according to player's choice so that they can keep both Force Field effects from ending by splitting the damage across them both.

[puppygirlpitjob]

Thanks for answering, I just had one little clarification to make sure I've got all this sorted one, regarding what you said here:

Finoan wrote:

1) It works for any weapons or unarmed attacks you happen to have. The requirement is that the enemy is Suppressed and does something to provoke the reaction.

The note about ignoring the Unweildy trait is not a requirement of the action as a whole. It is an added bonus that prevents it from failing to work with those Unweildy weapons.

I take it to mean that it DOES work with weapons with the Area trait, despite Area saying "Weapons with this trait can only fire using the Area Fire action."?

[Finoan]

puppygirlpitjob wrote:

I take it to mean that it DOES work with weapons with the Area trait, despite Area saying "Weapons with this trait can only fire using the Area Fire action."?

That is a good point.

No, it wouldn't work with Area Fire only weapons. Overwatch gives a Strike action as a reaction. The Subordinate Actions rule would prevent replacing the Strike action with the Area Fire action.