Notes from the playtest: Luminary

[Teridax]

After about a month of playtesting the Luminary, I've shared my feedback in the class survey and am doing the thing I normally do of sharing my notes on the forums. I'll split my post into sections, spoiler them, and add a TL;DR just so it's all a bit easier to navigate.

Methods:

Here are the methods I've used for my playtest:

* I ran my playtests across a series of encounters from levels 1 to 20, with more of a focus on lower-level play.

* I ran my Luminary with a variety of party compositions, mostly Starfinder classes but also with a few Pathfinder classes like the Fighter. I also compared the class's performance to close analogues like the Envoy and Pathfinder's Bard, replacing the Luminary with them in the same encounters and parties.

* I mainly ran the Luminary with a focus on Charisma, then Dex/Con/Wis in order, and briefly experimented with low/no Charisma builds.

* I experimented with different platforms and feats to get as comprehensive a feel of the class as I could.

TL;DR I ran the Luminary through a series of playtest encounters at all levels, using a variety of builds and party compositions. In this particular case, I also substituted the Luminary for an Envoy and a Pathfinder Bard to compare their performance to that of other Charisma-based support classes.

Core Class:

The Luminary's features I think are compact enough that the entire core class mechanics can be discussed in one go:

* Let's start with the positives: I really like the core mechanic of setting a spotlight and moving it around dynamically so that it doesn't fizzle out. I think this by itself made for dynamic, unique gameplay that is well worth keeping.

* With the above said, I found the process of setting a spotlight to be overcomplicated, mainly due to roles: Setting a Spotlight does nothing without an assigned role, and so the Luminary needs to spend additional actions Casting Roles on enemies, which ends up significantly taxing their actions over combat and making their core mechanic often literally useless when it's being passed around at low level. I feel this process could be condensed so that the spotlight always does something when it's being shifted onto someone else.

* I initially liked the diversity of roles on offer, but very quickly ended up disliking them. Not only are their modifiers incredibly weak, setting different roles ends up incurring a lot of bookkeeping that slowed down play quite a bit on an otherwise threadbare class. The excessive specificity of these roles also often meant that in some cases, they did nothing on an enemy even when the spotlight was on them and their role was cast, which is not great when that's meant to be the class's core contribution. That a 6th-level Bard could effectively cover nearly all roles at once with a dirge of doom underlined to me just how weak this core feature is.

* I generally enjoyed each platform's stagecraft spells, but found their initial spell to often be quite situational and formulaic, as they all set an additional spotlight for a minute and grant bonuses that don't always provide a significant benefit.

* Outside of the spotlight and stagecraft spells, the Luminary really did not have much to offer. Hardlight props didn't seem to serve any purpose other than add flavor, the class's Strikes are weak even after they get their 9th-level damage booster, and besides proficiency boosts their features don't seem to contribute much at most levels except make it easier to Set a Spotlight, which I didn't particularly enjoy given how I enjoyed the central challenge to passing the spotlight around that was being trivialized later on. It really feels like the entire Luminary's kit is only a fraction of what other classes have to offer, and the entirety of their contributions felt less than one side feature of Pathfinder's Bard class.

* On a more minor note, I'm surprised that the Luminary's Performance proficiency goes up to master in their features, but not legendary. I feel this could have easily been rectified with a 15th-level feature.

* Also a minor note, but I initially went in thinking Charisma wasn't terribly relevant to the class, as their spell DC only comes up sometimes, but was ultimately proven wrong, as in practice they have quite a few ways to use Performance instead of other skills. Although those actions are situational, there was generally so little benefit to opting into Strength or Intelligence instead of Charisma that it did not feel worth trying out low/no-Charisma builds for very long.

TL;DR The Luminary's core features feel incredibly bare-bones and weak, to the point where the entire class feels like only a small subset of other supports. Although I enjoyed the core gameplay of Setting a Spotlight and dynamically moving it around to maintain it, I disliked how weak and overwrought roles were, and didn't enjoy how later features made that core gameplay less relevant. The playtest survey stressed the fact that roles required no save for their penalties, but again, Pathfinder's Bard has been doing this for years with dirge of doom, a single-action cantrip that makes every enemy in a 30-foot radius frightened 1 with no save, so there's room for improvement I'd say.

Feats:

Covering the highlights of the class's feats:

* I never get tired of mentioning how much I love the names of Starfinder's feats. Names like Chewing the Scenery, Match Cut, or Sponsored Ad Break are thematically rich, relatable to real-world culture, and fun to put into action via their implementation.

* I enjoyed feats that played with hardlight in particular, and felt there could have been many more. Sculpt hardlight was fun to use for its cover, and I wish there was more use for hardlight props too.

* None of the feats seemed to stick out overmuch in terms of their power level, except maybe for cameo appearance, which felt like a better illusory creature. This isn't a huge deal, and it likely made a difference in my playtest simply because Sustaining the spell ended up being one of my stronger actions on a class that otherwise seemed to do very little at all well.

* I struggled a fair bit with choosing feats at 1st level, because all of them require Setting a Spotlight on yourself and I think pushed the Luminary into a much more selfish playstyle than I wanted. I feel those feats could've been made a bit more diverse, and I don't specifically think the Luminary should be pushed to Set a Spotlight on themselves (and this usually is their stagecraft spell) unless the situation calls for it.

TL;DR I generally liked the Luminary's feats, even if I didn't entirely enjoy how some of them pigeonholed the Luminary into Setting a Spotlight on themselves. I feel there's room for the class to play much more with hardlight, especially as it would help differentiate them more from other Charisma support classes.

The overarching TL;DR is that I feel I have very little to say about the Luminary, because it feels like there is so little to this class. It really does feel like an entire class was made out of what would normally be a full caster's side feature, such that this may very well be the weakest class I've playtested thus far, and by a lot. There's fun gameplay to be had with Setting a Spotlight, but even that I think is undercut by the muddle of roles that need to be cast individually and subsequent features that trivialize moving the spotlight around. There is a huge amount to this class that I think is seriously underdeveloped, and in my opinion a ton of power budget to put into fleshing out so many different things.

If I had to make any specific recommendations, it would be to simplify roles, streamline the process of applying modifiers to enemies, make the spotlight's modifiers a lot stronger (without requiring a save still), and really play up the class's hardlight aspect, so that they get to generate a variety of useful objects, structures, and other creations in encounters. Although the class was presented as an occult caster, I didn't particularly find that to be the case, and would rather focus on giving them stronger features rather than spell slots so that they don't just turn into a Bard in space.

[YoskiFan]

My biggest issue is Contest just does nothing... It has 1 role and a really bizarre feat that takes a whole turn to get anything out of. Not takes whole turn the set up is "spend an act to add a role then spend another role on yourself THEN do recall" it's just... Insanely impractical. And Contestant just you get +1 to try same check again...? It just asthetically a cool class but really rough to play

[Teridax]

That's what mystifies me: for a class that has so few tools, you'd think that their design would make up for this by making those tools versatile, powerful, and easy to use. In practice though it appears to be the opposite: roles are generally very situational, most of their effects are about as minor as can be in 2e, and they can be quite taxing to cast on enemies. Irony I think is a particularly unstable role given how it can help tremendously against monsters with saves that are fairly close together, but is likely to be a detriment when applied to a high-level monster with an extreme save that isn't worth targeting. Being able to RK easily as a Contest platform only after applying the role is a risky proposition, since the knowledge would be most needed before wanting to cast that role on an enemy.

The more I've played the Luminary, the more I've ended up feeling like roles are a major part of the problem: they slow down the process of applying the spotlight, they're individually too niche, and there's very little benefit to be had from the bookkeeping involved, especially since many feats and stagecraft spells do things like negate the penalty that defines them. Simply having the spotlight provide some generally useful modifier that could then be built upon with feats, stagecraft spells, etc. I think would eliminate a lot of that bookkeeping while making its gameplay a lot smoother.

[Xenocrat]

YoskiFan wrote:

My biggest issue is Contest just does nothing... It has 1 role and a really bizarre feat that takes a whole turn to get anything out of. Not takes whole turn the set up is "spend an act to add a role then spend another role on yourself THEN do recall" it's just... Insanely impractical.

It only takes one action to set the role on the enemy, which may be useful anyway if those save adjustments are to your benefit later, and then one action for the recall knowledge with (potentially mega boosted via feats/familiar) Performance. You get a free action spotlight on yourself and don't have to spotlight the enemy, so your third action is free.

It's basically a one action tax to super charge an omnilore for one one target. It's fine. It's even good if you're going to transfer the spotlight with your RK check and hit the lowered save or set up an ally to do so.