| Stitcharoo |
I'm starting this with the following caveats:
I'm super new to Starfinder 2e. I've played 2 convention Starfinder 2e society games, and this is based on that experience. I haven't yet experienced or learned how characters progress over time. I am experienced with a large variety of other TTRPGs, so I'm not entirely blind to how games are developed and played.
----- The character -----
Level 1 - Entu Colony, Squentu, Mechanic - Drone Exocortex - Agile/infiltrator chassis
----- The Experience -----
I really enjoyed the Overall flavor and idea of the class. But with that said, I kept finding myself in positions where I didn't have anything to really "do" with the class.
This is primarily because much of the class was situational in instances where the scenarios that abilities would come into play never came up, in either combat or out-of-combat activities.
It feels like the "Modify" ability is meant to be something that helps my team out by giving boons to the team member's weapons and/or armor, each turn, but it just doesn't manifest into anything meaningful. I really love the idea of tinkering with my party's equipment on-the-spot, like an engineer keeping finicky machinery running with grit and duct tape or overclocking/overcharging the crap out of items to drum up out-of-the-ordinary results. But the answer to questions of "are my companion's weapons explosive/AOE where a limited extension to size-of-boom makes a difference", "ar my companions trying to deal damage to an object", or "are we going for non-lethal damage" was always pretty much "no", leaving me unable to be of any assistance to anyone.
Modify's that affected myself only had a single usable option, and that was the killbot selection on each turn. Which is fine-and-dandy, if not a tiring one-note-wonder. I couldn't figure out where a brief "hover" ability would ever come into play. Cool points, I guess?
Quick Repair for the droid was the most avoided modify option. On a couple occasions the droid was single-hit killed/destroyed on the first turn of the first round of combat. Temporary HP can't revive the destroyed droid. So I was simply without the entire class feature for a good portion of combat, or even the entire session if a long-rest wasn't available. The droid state was either not damaged, where repair isn't useful, or completely dead, where repair isn't useful.
Being without the class feature is very rough as there isn't really enough other things the class can do without it.
support ability on the infiltrator chassis, throw an item into the air and try to catch it, I'm still not sure the point of that. I couldn't really figure out why the droid would have an item that I didn't already have in my inventory. Is the idea that it's supposed to be a concealed compartment to smuggle something? To use the ability, am I supposed to be in the same square in order to catch the item? I'm just really confused where this would be at all helpful in the action economy.
Another confusing thing about the drone, the commercial upgrades take an entire feat to add to the drone, but there is almost no return on investment value to the majority of options in the list. Nearly all of them are cosmetic and leaves me asking the question "why would I spend the feat on a cosmetic option when other non-drone feats contain functional effects"? And am I correct in thinking that non-mechanics can have these robotic companions and choose these commercial upgrades? What makes a mechanic's drone different from a non-mechanic's robot companion? I wasn't able to answer that question.
Lastly, For a couple combats, due to the above, my character was more often than not reduced to a base weapon roll then end turn. No class touches, enhancements, modifiers, or anything that carried the "feel" of the class into my actions. Roll pistol shot, end turn, rinse, repeat. Am I correct in feeling that most other classes do something "class" related each turn?
In conclusion, I do like the overall concept of the class. A scrappy space engineer using their wits to boon allies and bring robot driven hurt to their enemies. But, even still, I'm not sure why so much of the class is either unusable, ineffective/"flavor only", or can just be taken away quickly with zero recourse or correction.
These are my raw thoughts on the matter. Really curious how the class is going to change on official release.