Infosphere Director Envoy Build Discussion

[LunasMoonus]

I picked up this subclass in a campaign, but my perfectionism begs for insight into this Leadership Style and how to make the most of it. How can I squeeze the most juice out of it? I wish to minmax it as much as possible in a white room environment. I don't plan to be a complete sweat about it, but if I can make my Infosphere Director Envoy near optimal in theory, that would be nice. 85% minimum sweat with 15% or less fun and flavor.

I want to be very useful for my party.

[Squark]

Hmm...

So, what makes Infosphere Director (or any of the Leadership styles that just give a skill feat) stand out is its unique directive. Any envoy can take a skill feat and be trained in a skill, after all.

So, Let's look at Digital Assessment. The one action and two action versions serve pretty different purposes, which is nice.

The one action version is an improved Recall Knowledge. Recalling Knowledge is important, and Envoys have the skill increases to make it work, especially if you can spare in attribute boost or two to buff your wisdom or intelligence. One thing to note is that you can't use more than one directive in a turn. So you can't use Get 'Em! when you use Digital Assessment. That means your Strikes on digital Assessment turns won't be nearly as impressive as turns where you use Get 'Em!. Fortunately, you have alternatives- Grenades, Automatic Weapons, and Area Fire Weapons. And learning an extra resistance when you recall knowledge means you're better at picking which grenade to use, which is a nice bonus. Because Area Fire uses your Charisma based class DC, going to +2 dexterity at character creation will sting less if you go this route.

The two Action version of Digital Assessment lets you make a strike against the target, and gives you a +1 circumstance bonus to AC, but makes the target immune to Digital Assessment for 24 hours. It's a bit unclear if the intent is that the target is only supposed to be immune to the extra glitching condition for a tech creature or the entire effect. This is circumstantial (pun intended). It's not hard for your party to get a +2 circumstance bonus to AC from a shield, or a circumstance bonus to AC and reflex saves from cover. That being said, giving your entire party a bonus to AC against a dangerous foe could free up their actions for other things.

As far as archetypes go, two things jump out at me.

1) Getting better at recall knowledge or getting more value out of it synergizes with your unique directive.

2) If you lean into Area/Automatic Fire, Multiclass Soldier becomes very attractive.

[LunasMoonus]

Squark wrote:

Hmm...

So, what makes Infosphere Director (or any of the Leadership styles that just give a skill feat) stand out is its unique directive. Any envoy can take a skill feat and be trained in a skill, after all.

So, Let's look at Digital Assessment. The one action and two action versions serve pretty different purposes, which is nice.

The one action version is an improved Recall Knowledge. Recalling Knowledge is important, and Envoys have the skill increases to make it work, especially if you can spare in attribute boost or two to buff your wisdom or intelligence. One thing to note is that you can't use more than one directive in a turn. So you can't use Get 'Em! when you use Digital Assessment. That means your Strikes on digital Assessment turns won't be nearly as impressive as turns where you use Get 'Em!. Fortunately, you have alternatives- Grenades, Automatic Weapons, and Area Fire Weapons. And learning an extra resistance when you recall knowledge means you're better at picking which grenade to use, which is a nice bonus. Because Area Fire uses your Charisma based class DC, going to +2 dexterity at character creation will sting less if you go this route.

The two Action version of Digital Assessment lets you make a strike against the target, and gives you a +1 circumstance bonus to AC, but makes the target immune to Digital Assessment for 24 hours. It's a bit unclear if the intent is that the target is only supposed to be immune to the extra glitching condition for a tech creature or the entire effect. This is circumstantial (pun intended). It's not hard for your party to get a +2 circumstance bonus to AC from a shield, or a circumstance bonus to AC and reflex saves from cover. That being said, giving your entire party a bonus to AC against a dangerous foe could free up their actions for other things.

As far as archetypes go, two things jump out at me.

1) Getting better at recall knowledge or getting more value out of it synergizes with your unique directive.

2) If you lean into...

Thank you for the reply.

The biggest aspect bothering me is whether I should try to cover as many Recall Knowledge skills as a baseline or rely on Adaptive Mastery for Additional Lore. I am unsure about the order of importance of each skill for an Infosphere Director.

[Squark]

That's heavily campaign dependent, unfortunately. Talk with your GM and players.