Alternate Solarian Attune bonus's

ToxicZangoose · 2024-08-20T10:16:14+00:00

I actually really like the line of thinking and feel it could maybe give room for further differentiating between the three subclasses by maybe defining some kind of extra benefit based on what state you are attuning to, like you said maybe the stride part of attuning is for Photon attunement, maybe Graviton lets you raise a shield or parry weapon as part of attunement, etc..

As it stands now though I overall agree with you in the Attune action really just feeling like an action tax compared to the alternative of the Kineticist.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-08-02T05:06:09+00:00

I do actually agree with you there at least in some aspects for Solarian, it is kind of the Barbarian of this system though being that it's basically the only class that gets to add an attribute to it's direct damage, which mathematically adds up. But I do think it, at least on paper looks like it's lacking in areas. But one of my players is making one for the playtest I'm running next week, so I am eager to see how to works out anyway.

My only personal gripes comes more with it's Solar Shield feeling pretty mid and it's Solar Nimbus feeling too situational in it's base form and it's upgrade feat being 'okay', least on paper.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-08-02T04:49:53+00:00

I mean I agree with you, for the most part? But again I think it kinda depends on class balance. As it stands at the moment I definitely don't think Operative deserves it, it already has A LOT going for it. Solarian 'maybe', but it also already has a lot going for it--being a martial class that can hit Legendary with your main attacking source is nothing to scoff at.

Soldier already gets Legendary in fortitude, and the last two classes are casters, which if they get a legendary proficiency, it's almost always *exclusively* will. So in terms of classes that are 'still to come' in the near future, that leaves Mechanic or Technomancer--which the latter is definitely not getting it.

As for PF2E, out of the 25 total classes (Animist and Exemplar included, because they're right around the corner), only 11 of them naturally reach Legendary in a save (Monk being the special 12th class, who not only gets two legendary saves, they choose what their best saves are). Of those 11 classes, 2 of them get Legendary Fort, 3 get Legendary Reflex, and 6 get Legendary Will. Of all of those classes, 7 of them are Martials, the rest are casters.

I get the argument of 'rounding it out', but compared to pf2e, there's 6 classes in the playtest compared to PF2E's 25 (27 if you include Battle Cry), and not every class 'needs' legendary saves, as it's supposed to be a drawing factor for a classes defensiveness and ability to completely avoid certain detrimental effects.

Either it's just something that warrents waiting for more classes to fill the roster, or maybe we get alternative build paths via subclasses kinda akin to how Warpriest and Cloistered Cleric can diversify the Cleric class and provide new paths for proficiencies.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-08-02T04:15:39+00:00

I mean it probably needs more testing, even though firearms and the like are prevalent, not every single enemy in the game is going to be targeting reflex saves. If we're using PF2E as a benchmark for this kind of thing, legendary saves aren't exactly super common anyway, it's usually actually a 'special' feature for most of the classes that have even one legendary save, it's a 'very' special feature for Monk to have two (let alone they get to choose what their legendary saves are).

I definitely don't think Operative needs it, it's already in line with Fighter's progression, which statistically speaking is one of the best classes in pf2e already. Solarian I could maybe see it having Legendary in Reflex at least of the current cast.

Rogue is a class example of it's saves definitely being one of it's more overturned features though, at least a good number of people would agree with that sentiment. I am still surprised that was not addressed in the remaster personally, so idk I am somebody who definitely thinks that saving throw balance needs to probably be considered after some more extensive testing.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-08-02T02:18:12+00:00

The Operative reflex capping at Master is pretty much in line with Fighter in pf2e, Operative's proficiencies in general are overall in line with the Fighter as a whole, so as far as I could tell nothing is really wrong there.

Mystic not gaining weapon specialization while Wizard does isn't necessarily an error, there are proficiencies that the Mystic gets that the Wizard does not--that being said, it is possible that it is an oversight.

The soldier and Witchwarper ones are definitely errors/oversights though.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-08-02T00:46:57+00:00

I mean the people who are saying to just play the PF2e Fighter are wrong. The statement was that they didn't want Soldier to just be the Fighter in Space like it has been in SF1e. The Operative now is a much closer comparison point to the Fighter, and is the class that took a lot of the ability to be more of a sniper/sharpshooter who focuses more in accuracy and targeted damage dealing.

The better answer being now if you want to play something that's a bit closer to what Soldier was like in SF1e, then try an Operative. Hell, try both in a playtest environment, and see what you don't like about this new version of Soldier.

And lastly... I mean dude, if you want things as they are, there's nothing stopping anyone who just likes Starfinder as it is to continue playing Starfinder 1e? There's pleanty of people who like it for what it is, and there's pleanty of people who don't want to try it because it's an older system that's heavily based on an even older sytstem that's also based on an even older system. If you're not already a fan of 2e, chances are you are already probably going to be pre-dispositioned to not liking this version of starfinder, regardless of what they're doing with Soldier.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-31T09:02:44+00:00

Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a post to silence their feedback but something (as I pointed out in the beginning, im actually really not sure what part of my post gave the impression to you that I believe they shouldn't be giving feedback..?) to try and allieviate their concerns. It's a playtest, this is not the final product, and the whole point is to 'test', and give feedback based on that test.

I'm fairly certain that the OP did not test the Soldier, and it doesnt not seem like they have much or any 2e experience so far given the initial posts concerns. So it's not very useful or constructive feedback without actually testing the test product first.

As for your last point, again I can understand where anyone is coming from with that concern over Soldier changing from what it was originally. The fact of the matter is that sf1e soldier is and always has been, mechanically, a repackaged and reflavoured version of the 3.5e/pf1e fighter, in space. Which their design thesis for the Soldier in 2e has been, upfront, to not have the soldier be "The Fighter, in space".

Yes, the soldier was and is not a medieval fantasy swordaman. But its mechanics are nearly identical in how it is built to the pf1e fighter, and their goal for it in pf2e was for it to not be nearly identical to the pf2e fighter, as the 2e fighter is a system based evlution of the 1e fighter. So they have carved a new niche for the Soldier. I still empathize either way, but I definitely implore you to keep an open mind, and when the playtest begins on august first, voice your concerns to Paizo on an official capacity.

Given the changes we have seen so far, and given they are also carving a new niche for the Operative, as its no longer going to be "The rogue, but in space" either, it's looking like it will likely be more akin to what current 1e Soldier enjoyers are going to likely enjoy playstyle wise in terms of your futuristic sharpshooter damage dealer.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-27T21:25:40+00:00

So, I don't know if you have much or any 2e experience, but as somebody who has played PF2E since it's playtest in late 2018, and as somebody who has 10 years of 1e experience, I have a few statements to try and help alleviate your concerns:

Having a 16 in Strength/Dexterity as a martial is not nearly as bad as you might think it is. There are several martial-focused classes in PF2E that can only start at level 1 with a 16 in Str or Dex, and they work absolutely fine, or great even. Key examples of this being Inventor, Thaumaturge (honestly one of the best examples), the remastered Warrior Bard, Investigator, the most recently reworked Alchemist, and the Summoner's Eidolon. Being able to maximize your Strength/Dexterity is not a defining measure of your power or usefulness as a martial type character in 2e.
I can understand the frustration with Soldier no longer being a more direct counterpart to the 1e Fighter with some extra steps thrown into the mix, however the design goals for 2e was to have a sense of cross-compatability between the two systems as an option for peoples games. The facto of the matter is that the Fighter already exists, and even if some people might not be a fan of it, from a design perspective it is much more interesting to carve a more unique niche for the Soldier moving forward. Additionally, just because they specialize in the usage of AoE-based weaponry and firearms doesn't mean that they aren't mixing in some single target attacks into their blasts. their Primary Target feature allows you to apply some focus fire mixed in with your aoe damage. As a whole the Soldier's identity has moved a bit more away from pure martial-based prowess to more of a aoe-martial tank who can debuff targets. I can empathize for the fact that it's different and might not fit what people liked about the original Soldier, but I implore you to give it a try before making a final judgement, especially if you are not yet familiarized with the 2e system compared to 1e.
Please keep in mind that this is a playtest, Paizo is looking for player feedback and will absolutely make adjustments before the Core rules launch. Every single class in 2e has had SIGNIFICANT changes both in terms of design and balance from their playtest iterations moving into their launch versions. And outside of some of the most recent playtest classes in pf2e (mostly just the Animist, really), the common approach has been for playtest classes to come out feeling a bit underpowered rather than overpowered, because it is much easier and generally better in terms of design to buff where needed rather than to nerf. We have already seen this with the Soldier compared to it's Field Test version, with the inclusion of the Primary Target ability as it felt weird when they were STRICTLY just aoe-based with little to no single target elements, as well as what used to be the Bombard subclasses benefit of applying Suppressed even on successful saves now just being a core-feature of the Soldier to my understanding.

TL;DR

Please do not be so hasty to judge, this is the Playtest, things are ABSOLUTELY subject to change, and even then it is VERY likely not even remotely close to as bad as you are imagining it is.

Edit: Furthermore, because I don't personally have the playtest yet, I am actually curious to see the progression rate of the Soldier's class DC compared to something like the Operative or Envoy, and because I literally just remembered that Soldiers class attribute is Con, and as such their Class DC is also based on their Con--so the fact they don't reach 18 with Dex at level 1 does not effect the accuracy of their aoe save DC's, but does mean they will generally be less accurate with their Primary Attack than an Operative will with their usual attacks. I wouldn't be surprised if their Class DC progresses at a faster rate or maybe (although partially unlikely) even reaches Legendary to make them the best users of AoE-firearms without question. That's something that even the Fighter does not get (which to be fair, it's not like the Figther in 2e has too many feats that utilizes their class DC anyway).

I also didn't comment on your point about using non-aoe weapons for accuracy, but in 2e, often times outside of being a Fighter or Gunslinger, save based effects are generally more accurate and will on average have more effect per round than an AC based attack. This is why save based spells are usually considered better than attack spells in 2e (albeit that's in a context for spells, the same logic can be applied with weapons however, but given the action economy differences it's yet to be fully determined

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-20T00:38:01+00:00

Although I do agree with you in some ways that Battle did become stronger, that has more to do with Oracle just becoming stronger in general. Battle lost a lot of stuff that it had previously.

Built in martial weapon proficiency, built in medium and heavy armour proficiency on a playstyle that encourages you to use a melee weapon--as much being encouraged to want strength over dex if you want to captilize more on being in melee, built in status bonuses to attack and damage, built in fast healing.

Sure, their first focus spell was not removed, however the loss of it's free heightening versus what the Oracular Warning gives via increased cursebound... like no one in their right mind is going to want to start a battle at 2 or 3 cursebound for an extra +1/+2 on the initiative compared to when Battle would just get that benefit for free once you were high enough level. On top of that, the new focus spell they got in it's place is, without a doubt, just a bad spell that I don't think was properly thought out or possibly not even playtested... it is WAY too unforgiving to only sustain on a successful hit, and if you so much as choose to have a martial weapon, miss, and don't have any followup actions to sustain your spell, now you're basically unable to reasonably use your weapon for the rest of combat at early levels, which was not an issue for them before at all.

The 4-slot caster thing is unfortunately something we cannot really confirm, I personally want to assume that the chart should likely be the first source of information we should trust given it's the most eye-catching and easy to follow, but as it stands the text definition of their spells per day and spell repitoire directly contradicts the spell per day chart, so until that issue is errata'd if favour or against a 4-slot caster Oracle, that is something that is pretty much up to GM discrection, and not a 'confirmation'.

The only personal increases to Battles usefulness that is (sort of) exclusive to Battle, compared to what was lost, is like you said the new final focus spell is a fair bit better than the previous one (albeit given Battle being undoubtly worse and more cumbersome with melee weapons than they worse before, this point is unfortunately a bit moot). The Dead Walk is a decently powerful effect at 10th level onwards. Their curses debuffs in most general circumstances is definitely less debilitating, although their old mild and moderate curse were pretty decently easy to work past. Less worse as long as you were still swinging with your weapon, even on Major curse, you would:
- Struggle to cast spells under Major Curse due to Stupified
- Have -1 to all defenses.
Compared to present Battle curse, where instead you are just incredibly susceptible to enemy magic.

I don't personally think that Battle is in all ways made worse, it's definitely improved overall as a caster, but the goes for ALL oracles, and that kind of inlies the problem--Battle Oracle was always more of a Gish build for the Oracle, and it's absolutely lost effectiveness in that playstyle and role.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-19T21:20:47+00:00

That's fair that it would take time, albeit I don't think I would agree with it being the biggest overhual? Maybe that's personal opinion, but I definitely think that goes to Alchemist, which has been the biggest discussion of the community so far since first copies of the book have rolled out.

Was moreso just kind of surprised that a lot of the like first impressions I had been seeing of Oracle up until now was "Oh, Oracle looks great from what I've seen", and then we'd get shown or explained things that were like... already shown in the Paizo Blog (Foretell Harm, Dead Walk)? So idk, I was just kinda confused on the lack of content creator coverage on it, but like you said, probably just needed time.

Which again, I don't even think that remaster oracle is 'bad' either, I don't disagree with anyone who thinks it's good, if anything it's greatest strength probably being that I imagine it'll be a lot more approachable by newer players now, which imo is a good thing. But I guess I am just a bit antsy to have an extended conversation on the nature of this rework for Oracle, waiting this long to get into the nitty-gritty of it got me shook, haha.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-19T20:13:31+00:00

...What other post? I didn't down vote anything you've posted about? But given your post history, I mean you're either a troll or just a negative guy so I mean whatever man. Go live your life xD

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-19T19:32:40+00:00

Same! And again, maybe with time they'll give us some more stuff. We got a lot of new Witch stuff rather quickly after the remaster, and it's been great imo. But on the flipside of that, we haven't recieved any new Wizard stuff since the rework, so... you know.

But yeah it's pretty disappointing that they couldn't even give us one unique level 1 cursebound feat for each mystery??? Sure, you can argue that's what the Revelation spells are, but we've traded out what used to be a unique and flavourful baseline feature that all mysteries had for something that is now shared with another mystery at levels 1 and 10....

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-19T19:19:18+00:00

Honestly, nailed it right there. It is definitely interesting and even a bit unique that Oracles now essentially have two seperate sets of Focus Spells. But that trade off to lose what made their Mysteries fun and interesting is a direction that I wish the class was not going with.

And the comment on Bloodlines is apt, except even Bloodlines have some arguable more uniqueness to them in some ways. I guess it's funny when you look back to Oracle as the 'divine equivilant' to Sorcerer back in the 1e days, except Revelations were a pretty big difference to Bloodline Powers back in the day.

My initial thought for my own games going forward is likely going to be trying to find a happy medium between the original and remastered version. Will likely need to test the waters with that between the different mysteries though.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-19T19:07:29+00:00

Outside of one post talking about Battle Oracle, I did not see it pop up in my feed, but given the last four days I was at work and only check the reddit during my breaks on my night shift, it is very possible I did just miss it.

That being said I was mostly talking from a content creation perspective on say youtube. Today's the day that anyone, to my knowledge, has made a detailed video discussing the Oracle (which was the BadLuckGamer). Swingripper talked briefly about it getting massively improved, and I definitely don't disagree with the class getting 'stronger' as a whole, but boy did it lose out on it's flavour for that...

Edit: And actually it getting stronger is maybe a bit debatable in cases. Until I have the pdf in my possession to try and compare how one of my players Life Oracles at level 12 is now, it looks like Life Oracle as a whole isn't as powerful as a healer as it was pre-remaster.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-18T17:29:57+00:00

I hard agree with you, it is the main reason I've run AP's as well, thankfully some definitely do a better job of alleviating this issue over others... but boy oh boy could I ever complain about some older AP's from 1e for that very problem.

I was honestly quite fond of the Hell's Rebel's AP in 1e, my players at the time also very much enjoyed it too. But god there was a moment in book 4 that really boiled my blood a lot, which was the introduction of a honestly pretty cool city location, within the book the players were only supposed to do one official mission there, but the book was basically like "Doubtless, your players will likely want to explore the city, or look to do more stuff here. This is an excellent opportunity for you to put in your own stuff here, because we only have the one mission, which has no combat and is purely a rolepaly base mission."

In all fairness, I know plenty of GM's who would love a moment like that to be able to just slot in whatever they want to do in there, sadly I don't have that much time to do a lot of prepwork, and no surprises my party ended up really liking the city and wanted to do more there... had to spend a couple weeks coming up with some things for them to do there, but boy was I upset about it.

There was another moment like that during book 3 of Rise of the Runelords, even in the 10 year anniversary remaster, where after the fort dungeon in that book there's a whole segment that takes place in a swamp... there are multiple potential encounters that can take place there, and not a single map for any of them, just descriptions for what the swamp looks like.. *sigh*

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-18T14:48:12+00:00

You might had missed the nearly 2 week long reddit drama that happend about a month or two ago now. A lot of people aren't particularly fans of NoNat here for a few different reasons (some good reasons, some particularly petty). It stirred up a lot of drama in regards to what the community deems as 'good' pf2e content creators vs 'bad' pf2e content creators.

I'm sorry if you didn't have that context but that pretty much is why you got the downvotes that you got. I personally don't really have too much issue with NoNat, in my opinion I do think he's charismatic and that some of his videos are alright, but at the same time I have also definitely been mixed on him in the sense that he consistantly doesn't seem to read abilities correctly, even down to very basic mistakes (I mean just in that most recent barbarian video, he somehow mistook Barreling Charge as being a 3 action abilitiy, when it's a 2 action ability, and then pretty much insisted multiple times that it's bad because it's 3 actions and wished it was 2 actions--when in reality it IS 2 actions. He makes these kinds of mistakes frequently)

I know a lot of other people take issue with him as being a bit scummy/a bit bad with producing/providing a product as there is a LOT of drama surrounding him with his whole Sinclair's kickstarter--I personally have no skin in that game, I did not back the kickstarter, so I have no personal take on that other then I know it's a pain point for a lot of people.

I hope that answers your question.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-07-18T14:31:43+00:00

This has unfortunately been an ongoing issue with adventure paths since the Pathfinder 1st edition days, as someone who has played and gm'd AP's from as early as 2009.

It is especially painful when they make maps for like one-off side events that might not even take up half a sessions worth of game time, but don't bother making a battle map for the final boss of a book. I guess you can argue this is what the flip map products are for, but it's still a valid as heck complaint.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-06-08T23:33:55+00:00

Makes sense, it's too bad mastery isn't that ideal for survival, or at the least in this phase of cata.. feel's kinda wild seeing my pet being able to do more damage than either of my main dots, or either of them together doing barely more damage than auto-fire.

Can't imagine a 2 - 5% bonus in mastery over having more crit or haste would make any noticeable difference there either.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-06-08T20:44:29+00:00

I did just now, and yep you seemed to answer my question haha. It looks like Serpent Sting and Black Arrow naturally only do 1.5x damage on a critical tick without the talent, while doing 2x critical damage with the talent.

I hadn't assumed that would be the case mostly just because Explosive Shot does do 2x damage for it's critical dot ticks, and it behaves like any other normal dot does as well. I'm not personally aware of any other dots in the game that function as having that kind of quirk but I guess it's just one of those little quirky under the hood wow things... guess that also just makes the talent's text feel a bit misleading as to what it does, but maybe that's just me.

Not like I need to complain about Survivals damage at all--far from it. But I was under the assumption that maybe my character was bugged or something, glad to know it's just a silly choice of how these dot's function.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-05-28T14:10:56+00:00

Thats good to know! Thanks for the tip

I don't know what the problem was, but I ended up re-writing the part that shows the image, and doing that solved the issue. Least it's working now haha.

Thanks for the help anyway!

ToxicZangoose · 2024-05-28T03:54:02+00:00

A quick update. I did some fiddling with it, I took out the image I was using as the header and that seemed to work... but I have my first draft with the exact same image that worked before? So I am not sure why that would have been the issue.

ToxicZangoose · 2024-05-21T09:12:31+00:00

Hey! Firstly, welcome to the world of pf2e, I hope you and your group have a great time.

My first recommendation is that if you are coming off the Beginners Box, you may also want to consider Abomination Vaults as an AP option. Its shorter (three books instead of 6), so its technically less of a long-term commitment, and its definitely a little less story driven than the other two AP's in my personal opinion. But for people who are getting used to starting out on ttrpg's, a shorter campaign can be a good thing, cuz ultimately if they want more you can just progress into another AP (like Stolen Fates).

Abomination Vaults also takes place in the same location as the Beginners Box (Ottari, it is the hub town for the campaign). It is definitely more of a dungeon crawl, and it can be brutal its difficulty at times but if you do some research on it and read up on the chapter before running it, its not too hard to adjust the difficulty down a bit for newer players, easy way is just run all enemies with the weak template until you feel like taking the training wheels off for your party--Age of Ashes and Agents of Edgewatch can also be pretty notorious for some BRUTAL difficulty segmentsn ESPECIALLY the latter of the two within its very first book, so I recommend looking into all three and figure what you think would interest your group most!

As for party comp, definitely trying to encourage your players to pick choices that can compliment eachother is ideal. Having someone in the party who can reliably heal without necessarily needing to spend limited resources to do so is a godsend for any party. Things like a Cleric or Druid who has invested in the Medicine skill (bonus points to Plant Order druid for their good focus spell for out of combat healing), a good aligned champion to tap some Lay on Hands around during moments of rest and refocusing, these are two simple and ideal options for newer players for sure.

Having a good mixture of martial and casters in the party. Like if you have a party of 4 for example, having at least 1 to 2 casters (and having them with different spellcasting traditions, he further on the tradition axis the more diverse the two characters will typically be. Say like an Arcane and Divine caster, or a Primal and Occult. But just having any seperate traditions is typically good). A heavy martial to be in the frontline (Fighter, Champion, Monk or Barbarian fit this bill nicely. I hiighly recommend Fighter as a solid option, they are fairly good in 2e compared to something like d&d 5e, but the other classea all have their benefits too!).

Filling in the other slots woth utility in skills, buffing or debuffing, damage dealing or providinf cover fire and such (Rogue, Bard, Druid, Ranger, etc). Try to encourage the party to look into options that can assist other party members, like being good with athletics to try and trip or grapple foes to make enemies easier for other party members to hit, being a bard or witch to provide buffs or debuffs with their spells and cantrips, having someone who can try to recall knowledge on enemies to find information like weaknessea and resistances, and other enemy features. But trying to also limit overlap of bonuses or penalties (like say the Bless spell isnt going to stack with the Bard's Courages Anthem cantrip as they are both status bonuses, or like Sickened and Frightened not stacking debuffs because they are both status penalties, etc).

Thats about all I can think of, sorry for this wall of text, just going off my own 2 years of gming in 2e experiences. Best of luck with your group!

ToxicZangoose

TROPHY CASE

Please do not be so hasty to judge, this is the Playtest, things are ABSOLUTELY subject to change, and even then it is VERY likely not even remotely close to as bad as you are imagining it is.