In previous videos my comments were inundated with "but its a different game balance will be different" Here is a clear example of something undershooting the mark! As opposed to the other things that overshot the mark. Its all playtest weirdness for power budgets not the games being a fundamentally different balance. Please read the first non-table of contents page and note what it says about mixing game systems. Solarian can't play the game at range despite it being power-budgeted to do so and it needing to exist in a ranged-focused meta. I don't see a major selling point on Solarian over Kineticist for ranged or melee combat as both are "d8 damage classes" with limited ranged attacks and I think the kineticist feats are just a touch stronger / more versatile. People can disagree with me on this in the comments of course, but I want to see a bit more OOMPH be driven into Solarian so it is not pushed out of its niche by Fighter + Caster archetype and Kineticist
I agree, and you make a good point with how the Kineticist uses their key class attribute, Constitution, for both melee and ranged attacks. Buffing their Solar Shot feature is important in a game that's very much geared for ranged combat.
Situations like this kinda make DC20's inclusion of your highest, 'primary attribute' being used for all your attacks an interesting choice. It makes a few things a little less interesting or weird to justify, but it also easily avoids situations like this. Considering solarian also was cha-focused in SF1, I could've also seen 2e using cha for all weapon strikes, rather than making them str focused. But as is, damn they're really MAD.
In PF2e specifically, you'd probably get people wrinkling their nose at the idea of a fantasy martial using CHA for attack, because the system has so many simulationist bits and bobs. Yes, you can Battle Medicine in 2 ingame seconds, but it's a realism game. Fine. Which is why Starfinder could be the perfect place to *get weird with it.* Why can Solarian use CHA for attack and damage and qualifying for heavy armor? Because they're a sci-fi gravity Jedi, don't think about it so hard. Hell yeah.
is solarion an MADder than any other martial? They want Str for melee and armor, Dex for ranged, Ref, and AC, and Con for hp, that's it that's what everyone wants
@@lawrl777 Most martials aren't forced to take ranged options, and ranged is a choice they make. And, the passive benefits of an ability modifier are not as influential as the active benefits (attacking vs saving throws, etc.) If not opting for ranged attacks, you usually take enough dex to cap out your armor if focusing more on STR; it's why bulwark on armor gives you a bonus to reflex saves for martials who are lower on DEX. Heck, even Monk gets the option to use mountain stance so even they can effectively ignore dex. You absolutely can have an 18 str 16 dex monk, but an 18 str 12 dex monk will also be about as effective, as will a 12 str 18 dex monk. Solar Shot for Solarian however is a core ability that requires dex, despite being a str based class, and is a core feature, not a choice; it's referenced for quite a few other abilities. A champion with low dex consciously gives up the ability to strike at range, yes, which comes up occasionally. A Solarian with low dex gives up the ability not just to strike from range, but to effectively use a LOT of their class features that require this ranged strike. Other classes that don't use their primary attribute for their main attacks (inventor, investigator, thaumaturge, alchemist, etc.) at least have some unique interaction with their primary attribute that augments their martial attacks, or their attacks are more a secondary ability for their main tools and functionality. Solarian's primary goal however is to fight and attack, yet the only interaction between their primary attribute and solar shot is the usual "add str to thrown weapon damage" which is a baseline functionality. It might feel more practical if finesse were an option for your solar weapon, and/or if you could make DEX your primary attribute. But as is, basically all solarians need to go STR first, followed by DEX, since so many abilities rely on solar shot. They don't get a choice to dump dex like heavily armored martials do, unless you want to ignore solar shot as a feature. (And remember, SF is more ranged focused, so that'd be rough.) (Also I feel like this would be a prime candidate to consider for cha-based weapon attacks.)
I just realized something, I think the reason why Solarian is STR based now and not CHA based like it was in SF1: there are 6 classes in base, and each one has a different key attribute. Which if that's the case then I'd say that even further justification for making solar shot a STR attack.
I don't really have a problem with Solar Shot being DEX (this is pretty standard stuff, STR for melee, DEX for ranged), but I would like to see the Solarion become a STR/DEX choose-your-own KAS class. It would be nice of the Solarion Crystals (kinda their fundamental runes) also applied to Solar Shot. If we did choose-your-own KAS, you'd probably need to add Finesse as an option to the Solar Weapon, which seems reasonable enough I'm also not sure if some Solarions will want to just use non-solar martial weapons--you have the ability to do so at an equal potency of your Solar weapons until 19th, where they suddenly get Legendary proficiency in Solar Weapons. But I think if you're better off just using a martial weapon, there is a problem with the class design. They're kinda stranded between being pseudo-kineticists and just a regular martial, with some jank from having both of those roles. Anyway, first playtest today and I have a Solarion, we will see what's up!
The problem I faced was that Solar Shot was presented as seemingly an equal alongside the weapon. If they want to emphasise melee I can understand that, but then don't present a ranged attack as part of the class chassis! Even if it's bad, giving it out for free will equally make it feel bad if it goes unused.
I agree. Why give them ranged attack as core feature but make STR their main attribute? They should be able to attack based on class dc like a kineticist… could be a core unique feature that they can range attack with STR (for just those class feature ranged abilities)
That's a very boring design, where STR is pretty much the only stat they'd need. That's a flaw with Kineticist, too, but at least they make up for it by having a billion ways to build the character with different element combinations. Letting Solarian choose STR or DEX makes a lot more sense.
@@iang0th It's actually more interesting to make the character only need one stat, because they can take the stat they need, and then some other stat. SwingRipper built a strength fighter with int as the 2nd best stat. If he had to put DEX as his 2nd best score he would not have a choice, and THAT is boring.
These videos have been echoing a lot of thoughts I've had on this system -- it just seems _really_ MAD. The system really wants everyone to use guns, to at least some extent, but then only one martial gets it as their KAS. It's hard to rock a usable dex score, a usable str or con score, and then something more unique. I'd for one love a wisdom Solarian or an intelligence Fighter but I'm just not sure if the system can handle all that while sticking strictly to the PF2 chassis unfortunately.
Int fighter totally works, I used one in my strongest party vid and justified it by taking their recall knowledge level 1 fighter feat and cantrips from an archetype. Generally STR chars only need STR to truly function so removing the need from dex opens up a lot of fun secondary stat choices!
The area damage modes from guns call for class DC so the really big guns will likely be the backup weapon of choice for non dex chars, but it does hamper "backup pistol" ideas
While it's really cute that there are six classes and each one uses a different key attribute, they really should make the Solarian a Dex or Str class. I know they're pushing for this to be the quintessential melee class of S2e, but it pigeonholes the class too much to be so predominantly melee, and only strength melee at that. They learned this same lesson with the Champion way back in the first P2e playtest. Though honestly, I would be interested in seeing how they would work as an off key martial like Inventor or Thaumaturge. Give their abilities a smidge of a power bump to off set their key attribute not being a martial attack stat. A physical stat doesn't really fit them thematically anyways. They probably won't do that though.
The thing that stings out the most to me, is that they function a lot like a kineticist in terms of having spelll like abilites. But kineticists scale as good as full casters, while the solarian class dc scales even worse than from taking a caster archetype. They gain expert at 13 and master only at 19.
Santa: My child will put dex as his second best score to be able to do anything in the ranged focused meta JC: Brutally effective: Solarian's Solar shot and thrown weapon attacks gain the Brutal trait.
I really miss the Aetherkineticist from 1e, so I was really hoping that the Solarian would be the "Jedi kineticist" option. And while I really like what I see, I feel like it's pretty clunky in this playtest. Since Paizo went with "one class for each ability score", I think it would be way better if they swapped the Solarian and Soldier around. Make it so Soldiers are the STR class and gain the Brutal trait when doing Area attacks, while making the Solarian CON based as a space kineticist that's attuned to the Drift/Void instead of the elemental planes. This way the class with legendary futuristic armor doesn't also get the best HP in both games, and makes the ranged attacks / solar revelations more relevant with kineticist DC progression.
I suspect for the playtest, they might've undertuned due to being worried about Solarian's hand budget. By default they have 1h weapon and open hand. The gun doesn't require a hand. With feat they can give themselves a shield which also doesn't require a hand. With feat they can turn themselves into a dual-wielder, but one or both weapons can be given Free Hand trait. So if the gun already adds full STR and if they made it fully accurate too, and they can use the free hand to pull out sci-fi potions and scrolls, maybe all of that becomes too versatile for free. But ideally the playtest will see if such concerns are warranted or not.
Survivability of the Solarian class is also in question because most likely you will be the only melee class in the party. Enemies are likely to be ranged and so you need to spend actions closing in while taking shots from the enemies. Their defensive abilities like nimbus surge only works when being hit by melee attacks. Most likely even if you reach melee range with the enemy, they will just shoot you within 5ft and you can't trigger nimbus surge. Nimbus surge should have a range so that you react to range attacks as well. Solar shield is bad too since it has no/low hardness. The photon attuned effect only affects enemies adjacent to the solarian, the effect is too weak for that. Stellar rush should have a free strike like sudden charge and change the +10 foot circumstance bonus to speed to status bonus to speed.
I almost always play characters with dex as primary or secondary stat, but I think it is *good* that Solar Shot is the way it is. it is clear that Paizo does not want Solarians able to have a primarily ranged fighting style. Giving them the option of dex KAS or the shot brutal would encourage that. Also, there is a key difference between melee in Starfinder vs melee in Pathfinder - in Starfinder the PCs get flight at much lower levels. The times that an opponent will be unreachable are far fewer. If you think of Solar Flare as a fighter's thrown weapon kept as a backup option, it's much better - autoscaling damage, doesn't have to be drawn, doesn't require a free hand, free, unlimited quantity, and can't be used against you. It's not perfect though - there is no way to get item bonuses on Solar Flare. The two things I would change for the Solarian is: 1) Making the level 1 feat Stellar Rush work with fly speeds 2) Something akin to Gate Attenuators for Solar Flare
An auto rune backup shot is fine... But then the class becomes "do these special abilities make up the gap vs fighter" and I think that's a no. I believe the ranged strike is somewhere you can put power while giving it a different niche.
@@SwingRipper I've not seen one in action to make a determination there, but I would rather see the special abilities get buffed over Solar Shot. Those abilities are what make the class unique and interesting. The fact of the matter is that perfect class balance is a mirage - you can see it in the distance but you will never actually get there. I think that it is much more important for people to want to play a class for the class fantasy, and then the class be able to live up to that fantasy in play. I love playing my earth/fire kineticist even though his damage output will never be consistently on par with the fighter or barbarian and his versatility not being on par with a true caster. I love playing my ruffian rogue grapple clawdancer even though wrestler would have been a more powerful archetype.
I find that note on compatibility you showed in earlier videos interesting because while they never say "cross-balanced" outright, they do heavily imply that StarFinder 2e and PathFinder 2eR will not just be cross-compatible but also cross-balanced, this is interesting since I would expect that StarFinder characters should probably get earlier access to things like flight, so I would like to know how they handle that.
That is done in the equipment which was explicitly called out to be balanced differently in its section Classes are explicitly called out to be cross compatible
personally im fine with the solarian being charged the "switch hitter tax", Solar Shot is usually a backup option, and you don't pick balanced solarian for Binaric Assault you pick it to be able to reattune as you wish, BUT Solar Shot definitely needs a range increment and item bonuses at least
Honestly i think the major concept mark that was missed was making Solarian str based and soldier con based. It would make more sense to me of those were reversed. And yes, it should use con for the attack.
@@SwingRipper That's fair, and I'm probably wrong, it was just that the concept in my head kinda fit better with that swap. However, I will say now that I've come up with a fun character concept that I wanna roll on the Solarian it almost instantly swapped my opinion on it XD. I wanna run a Skitterling Solarion using the grappling stuff they have. A little solar powered Stitch giving hugs XD.
Honestly, solar shot can be outperformed by aweapon with returning rune. Just let it use STR. Maybe if people want to go into dex let them do so with idk one of the stellar arrangements or with a lvl 1 feat.
I mean it might be fine for them to use dexterity on that as long as they don't have to rely on it (By giving them other options to play around range enemies) and can build around other abilities. Maybe it should also be optional and you could take a different, ability instead that goes off of a different ability (Energy blasts can also absolutely scale with mental stats after all, or you could also allow them to focus more on melee by giving them a STr based close range option. Maybe an emanation attack that scales with Str for example). You could also allow them to take a Feat to give it the brutal trait. I am just brainstorming though, haven't really gone into the class yet.
It might be cool to have Solarian to have two subclasses--the first being void, sun or balance, the second being focus on solar weapon(KAS str), solar shot(KAS dex) or balance between both. Each subclass can *use* both, but the focus becomes another tradeoff
How is it any different than archers in pf2e being suboptimal if they dont have some str for damage? I disagree that its underpowered. Just build 18 str/ 14dex /14 con and 12 in your favorite mental. Or if you really want a mental stat focus, accept lower accuracy on your blast. "But i want to be a face or something too" isnt an arguement for game balance.
Archers get to have a key ability score on accuracy and can fight at more than 35 ft away If solar shot is the way it is right now, why would you pick solarian over a fighter with a cantrip or kineticist? It does not exist in a vacuum.
@@SwingRipper solarion with 14 dex has more accuracy than fighter with 14 int shooting needle darts, because you get automatic scaling proficiency in solar shot and not in cantrip accuracy. Also, solar shot is 1 action instead of 2, and has better damage and better rider effects (trip or persistent dmg). So it's really significantly better than a fighter using a ranged cantrip.
> needle darts There is your issue, Frostbite does SOMETHING when an enemy succeeds their save and will have a higher expected output while not needing them to swap hands If a main class feature is comparable to 1/3rd of the power budget of a single level 2 feat (second cantrip + two skill trainings from almost every caster dedication) that main feature is probably weak
@@SwingRipper taking lvl 5 as an example, and using the pure dmg version for easy comparison, solar shot does 2d6 + 5 + 1d6 dmg, and presumably is expert proficiency to hit, with 16 in dex. So spending the same action economy on both options we have solarian making a 2nd attack at -5. Using our favorite pf2e damage calculator, set to high ac moderate saves, I created routines for these and the solarion attacking twice with solar blast does 7.2 dpr at lvl 1, 15.09 at lvl 5, dips down to 11 at lvl 8, back up to 15.4 at lvl 10. I couldnt' figure out how to model the non-scaling persistent fire dmg after that level so I only ran it lvls 1 to 10. Meanwhile a fighter, whether or not he spends feats increasing his spellcasting DC (it made very little dpr difference surprisingly) does 3.3 at lvl 1, 6.8 at lvl 5, 8.8 at lvl 10. So its usually about HALF the dpr of the solarian. Not comparable at all, solarian is clearly better at this. for fun I compared it to your proposed change (str to hit and dmg) and the solarian gains between 1.5 and 3 dpr depending on the level. Edit: oops, set both stats to start at 16 and get to 20. Redoing it with the correct 14 to 20 stat allocation shows a small loss of dpr to both cantrip and solar shot. It's still double dpr on the Solarian's side.
Maybe solar shot should be a reflex or fortitude save (depending on atunement) instead of a ranged attack. Otherwise I am not sure this is really that bad, it is in my mind the equivalent of a fighter using a crossbow when their enemies are outside of their sword's range. And nothing stops the Solarian from using a gun when they have to.
Solarion has always been a tough class concept. Any conversation about the Solarion has to start with the fact that they’re shoehorned in without context because someone at paizo thought “we need something like a Jedi” but couldn’t come up with anything connected to the setting, or with a coherent image. The sun is boring, it’s energy without motivation -there are no cool character concepts in media or film to draw on* -there are no sun gods / sun cults in the setting that connect to the solarion, -they should lean into the Kasatha lore more but they don’t You could impute cooler sun stuff (or black hole stuff like worm holes, time dilation, growing and shrinking, hidden universes, etc). But for whatever reason paizo is locked in on the extremely boring surface- level physics. Why do solarions have powers, are they an elect few? Is there some spiritual calling? Nobody knows or cares. Why do their energy powers use physical muscle power? Not addressed. (They just needed a strength stat character). There is no type of adventure or situation when you think “oh, that would be a great adventure to play a solarion”. Compare that with operative, mechanic, technomancer, mystic, solder. You can immediately think of great spy, techno-thriller/lost technology/new technology invention, magical, spiritual, warfare/gladitorial adventures. Because solarions don’t want or do anything, and (unlike the Jedi / superman their role in the setting is not “I am the most powerful being on any planet I’m on”) they are really really hard to do. What do they do “fire damage I guess” or “black holes are… uh, bludgeoning damage?”. Like the 3 gravity powers are black hole,black hole and black hole. The only thing you have to allocate power budget to is like… I do more fire, or I do more black hole. You can critique it along the lines of “it should do more fire damage to be more in line with the fighter/barbarian dar” but that kind of misses the point. They could easily have expanded solarion out to other cosmic phenomena (e.g. wormholes, gas giants, nebula, etc) and tried to make a kind of cosmic space druid/kinetisist. Which is at least half a concept. Actually they should just have made Solarion 2 Kinetisist elements like Sun and Void. That would already make them 200% better. Like “during the gap the metal and wood elemental planes came into alignment now the “solar and void elemental planes are coming into alignment and the solar plane and the void plane are recruiting champions to restart their eternal battle”. The SF2 version is much improved. But a space knight without the knight is just empty space.
These complaints also work against magus word for word Replace "Solarian" with "Magus" all the celestial bodies with "Arcane" The class has interesting stuff, its a good thing that it is not tied to one specific organization.
@@SwingRipper Magus essentially became "how do we put anime swordman in Golarion", though a explanation to how they get their powers would be appreciated
You've landed directly on why it was so incredibly hard for me to make a character for Starfinder. It's just difficult to imagine a character in the vast majority of starfinder classes outside of Soldier, Mystic and Operative. I can't name a single fictional character off the top of my head that might be a Solarion or a Vanguard. I'd come up with a cool idea for a Nanocyte, thinking that it'd be something like Senator Armstrong, Adam Jensen or the T-1000 from Terminator only to find out that it is, in fact, incapable of being anything like any of those characters. Inspector Gadget-style cyborg space pirate? That's not a nanocyte either. I've got a whole trash bag full of starfinder character sheets I've thrown away thanks to them being non-starters because the core fantasies of the classes are so poorly defined and not reflected in the mechanics of the class. The mechanic is more of a hacker than a mechanic. The Biohacker is more of a poisoner than a scientist. I still don't know what a Nanocyte is.
Its a poor man's Kineticist. Look at what it does less of what a Kineticist does with extra limitations. The shield should switch with the shot. So that you as a base solarian can make a weapon shield or armor/aura. Give the shield the thrown trait. Solarian shot should be a level 1 class feat you can pic
No. Solarian doesn’t need the Brutal trait on their Solar Shot. The class is already hugely SAD and it’s going to want to have DEX anyway for reflex saves, which are going to be called for even more often than in Path thanks to the existence of area weapons. Just give the balanced Solarian a different starting ability (because right now it’s boring as all heck) and increase the range of Solar Shot so it can actually compete with using a sidearm. Done. No other changes needed to Solar Shot.
I disagree, Solarian is just a weaker melee all around, and after play testing the class, with its current feats, constantly had me saying in my head, “I can just play Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, or Ranger for the mystical warrior feel and flavor my focus spells or features as warping gravity and heat, or I can just play a Kinetiscist if I want to play a ranged Solarian and just flavor my features as manipulating gravity and heat.” The Solarian does everything the martial classes can but worse, and can’t even stand toe to toe with the Kinetiscist in the range department let alone have their unique class features used more than once every 10 minutes or once every hour, compared to the Kinetiscist who can use it every round short of being brought out of their "stance."
In previous videos my comments were inundated with "but its a different game balance will be different"
Here is a clear example of something undershooting the mark! As opposed to the other things that overshot the mark.
Its all playtest weirdness for power budgets not the games being a fundamentally different balance. Please read the first non-table of contents page and note what it says about mixing game systems.
Solarian can't play the game at range despite it being power-budgeted to do so and it needing to exist in a ranged-focused meta.
I don't see a major selling point on Solarian over Kineticist for ranged or melee combat as both are "d8 damage classes" with limited ranged attacks and I think the kineticist feats are just a touch stronger / more versatile. People can disagree with me on this in the comments of course, but I want to see a bit more OOMPH be driven into Solarian so it is not pushed out of its niche by Fighter + Caster archetype and Kineticist
I agree, and you make a good point with how the Kineticist uses their key class attribute, Constitution, for both melee and ranged attacks. Buffing their Solar Shot feature is important in a game that's very much geared for ranged combat.
Situations like this kinda make DC20's inclusion of your highest, 'primary attribute' being used for all your attacks an interesting choice. It makes a few things a little less interesting or weird to justify, but it also easily avoids situations like this.
Considering solarian also was cha-focused in SF1, I could've also seen 2e using cha for all weapon strikes, rather than making them str focused. But as is, damn they're really MAD.
In PF2e specifically, you'd probably get people wrinkling their nose at the idea of a fantasy martial using CHA for attack, because the system has so many simulationist bits and bobs. Yes, you can Battle Medicine in 2 ingame seconds, but it's a realism game. Fine.
Which is why Starfinder could be the perfect place to *get weird with it.* Why can Solarian use CHA for attack and damage and qualifying for heavy armor? Because they're a sci-fi gravity Jedi, don't think about it so hard. Hell yeah.
is solarion an MADder than any other martial? They want Str for melee and armor, Dex for ranged, Ref, and AC, and Con for hp, that's it that's what everyone wants
@@lawrl777 Most martials aren't forced to take ranged options, and ranged is a choice they make. And, the passive benefits of an ability modifier are not as influential as the active benefits (attacking vs saving throws, etc.) If not opting for ranged attacks, you usually take enough dex to cap out your armor if focusing more on STR; it's why bulwark on armor gives you a bonus to reflex saves for martials who are lower on DEX. Heck, even Monk gets the option to use mountain stance so even they can effectively ignore dex. You absolutely can have an 18 str 16 dex monk, but an 18 str 12 dex monk will also be about as effective, as will a 12 str 18 dex monk.
Solar Shot for Solarian however is a core ability that requires dex, despite being a str based class, and is a core feature, not a choice; it's referenced for quite a few other abilities. A champion with low dex consciously gives up the ability to strike at range, yes, which comes up occasionally. A Solarian with low dex gives up the ability not just to strike from range, but to effectively use a LOT of their class features that require this ranged strike.
Other classes that don't use their primary attribute for their main attacks (inventor, investigator, thaumaturge, alchemist, etc.) at least have some unique interaction with their primary attribute that augments their martial attacks, or their attacks are more a secondary ability for their main tools and functionality. Solarian's primary goal however is to fight and attack, yet the only interaction between their primary attribute and solar shot is the usual "add str to thrown weapon damage" which is a baseline functionality.
It might feel more practical if finesse were an option for your solar weapon, and/or if you could make DEX your primary attribute. But as is, basically all solarians need to go STR first, followed by DEX, since so many abilities rely on solar shot. They don't get a choice to dump dex like heavily armored martials do, unless you want to ignore solar shot as a feature. (And remember, SF is more ranged focused, so that'd be rough.) (Also I feel like this would be a prime candidate to consider for cha-based weapon attacks.)
This is why its still a playtest right now. This is some good feedback that Paizo needs.
I just realized something, I think the reason why Solarian is STR based now and not CHA based like it was in SF1: there are 6 classes in base, and each one has a different key attribute.
Which if that's the case then I'd say that even further justification for making solar shot a STR attack.
I don't really have a problem with Solar Shot being DEX (this is pretty standard stuff, STR for melee, DEX for ranged), but I would like to see the Solarion become a STR/DEX choose-your-own KAS class. It would be nice of the Solarion Crystals (kinda their fundamental runes) also applied to Solar Shot.
If we did choose-your-own KAS, you'd probably need to add Finesse as an option to the Solar Weapon, which seems reasonable enough
I'm also not sure if some Solarions will want to just use non-solar martial weapons--you have the ability to do so at an equal potency of your Solar weapons until 19th, where they suddenly get Legendary proficiency in Solar Weapons. But I think if you're better off just using a martial weapon, there is a problem with the class design. They're kinda stranded between being pseudo-kineticists and just a regular martial, with some jank from having both of those roles.
Anyway, first playtest today and I have a Solarion, we will see what's up!
The problem I faced was that Solar Shot was presented as seemingly an equal alongside the weapon. If they want to emphasise melee I can understand that, but then don't present a ranged attack as part of the class chassis! Even if it's bad, giving it out for free will equally make it feel bad if it goes unused.
I agree. Why give them ranged attack as core feature but make STR their main attribute? They should be able to attack based on class dc like a kineticist… could be a core unique feature that they can range attack with STR (for just those class feature ranged abilities)
That's a very boring design, where STR is pretty much the only stat they'd need. That's a flaw with Kineticist, too, but at least they make up for it by having a billion ways to build the character with different element combinations. Letting Solarian choose STR or DEX makes a lot more sense.
@@iang0th It's actually more interesting to make the character only need one stat, because they can take the stat they need, and then some other stat. SwingRipper built a strength fighter with int as the 2nd best stat. If he had to put DEX as his 2nd best score he would not have a choice, and THAT is boring.
These videos have been echoing a lot of thoughts I've had on this system -- it just seems _really_ MAD. The system really wants everyone to use guns, to at least some extent, but then only one martial gets it as their KAS. It's hard to rock a usable dex score, a usable str or con score, and then something more unique. I'd for one love a wisdom Solarian or an intelligence Fighter but I'm just not sure if the system can handle all that while sticking strictly to the PF2 chassis unfortunately.
Int fighter totally works, I used one in my strongest party vid and justified it by taking their recall knowledge level 1 fighter feat and cantrips from an archetype.
Generally STR chars only need STR to truly function so removing the need from dex opens up a lot of fun secondary stat choices!
Imagine doing this in 5e with 1/4 the ability boosts though
@@SwingRipper I meant to say Int soldier. I was very tired when I left that.
The area damage modes from guns call for class DC so the really big guns will likely be the backup weapon of choice for non dex chars, but it does hamper "backup pistol" ideas
While it's really cute that there are six classes and each one uses a different key attribute, they really should make the Solarian a Dex or Str class. I know they're pushing for this to be the quintessential melee class of S2e, but it pigeonholes the class too much to be so predominantly melee, and only strength melee at that. They learned this same lesson with the Champion way back in the first P2e playtest.
Though honestly, I would be interested in seeing how they would work as an off key martial like Inventor or Thaumaturge. Give their abilities a smidge of a power bump to off set their key attribute not being a martial attack stat. A physical stat doesn't really fit them thematically anyways. They probably won't do that though.
Hell technically operative is STR or DEX due to having Striker subclass
Brutal for Solarian Solar Shot would be great, make it more like kineticist. It’s already similar in my mind.
They would need to make it a core class only feature. Or fighter with Solarian archetype is going to be better.
The thing that stings out the most to me, is that they function a lot like a kineticist in terms of having spelll like abilites. But kineticists scale as good as full casters, while the solarian class dc scales even worse than from taking a caster archetype. They gain expert at 13 and master only at 19.
Santa: My child will put dex as his second best score to be able to do anything in the ranged focused meta
JC: Brutally effective: Solarian's Solar shot and thrown weapon attacks gain the Brutal trait.
I really miss the Aetherkineticist from 1e, so I was really hoping that the Solarian would be the "Jedi kineticist" option. And while I really like what I see, I feel like it's pretty clunky in this playtest.
Since Paizo went with "one class for each ability score", I think it would be way better if they swapped the Solarian and Soldier around. Make it so Soldiers are the STR class and gain the Brutal trait when doing Area attacks, while making the Solarian CON based as a space kineticist that's attuned to the Drift/Void instead of the elemental planes. This way the class with legendary futuristic armor doesn't also get the best HP in both games, and makes the ranged attacks / solar revelations more relevant with kineticist DC progression.
I suspect for the playtest, they might've undertuned due to being worried about Solarian's hand budget. By default they have 1h weapon and open hand. The gun doesn't require a hand. With feat they can give themselves a shield which also doesn't require a hand. With feat they can turn themselves into a dual-wielder, but one or both weapons can be given Free Hand trait. So if the gun already adds full STR and if they made it fully accurate too, and they can use the free hand to pull out sci-fi potions and scrolls, maybe all of that becomes too versatile for free.
But ideally the playtest will see if such concerns are warranted or not.
Survivability of the Solarian class is also in question because most likely you will be the only melee class in the party. Enemies are likely to be ranged and so you need to spend actions closing in while taking shots from the enemies.
Their defensive abilities like nimbus surge only works when being hit by melee attacks. Most likely even if you reach melee range with the enemy, they will just shoot you within 5ft and you can't trigger nimbus surge. Nimbus surge should have a range so that you react to range attacks as well.
Solar shield is bad too since it has no/low hardness. The photon attuned effect only affects enemies adjacent to the solarian, the effect is too weak for that.
Stellar rush should have a free strike like sudden charge and change the +10 foot circumstance bonus to speed to status bonus to speed.
I almost always play characters with dex as primary or secondary stat, but I think it is *good* that Solar Shot is the way it is. it is clear that Paizo does not want Solarians able to have a primarily ranged fighting style. Giving them the option of dex KAS or the shot brutal would encourage that.
Also, there is a key difference between melee in Starfinder vs melee in Pathfinder - in Starfinder the PCs get flight at much lower levels. The times that an opponent will be unreachable are far fewer.
If you think of Solar Flare as a fighter's thrown weapon kept as a backup option, it's much better - autoscaling damage, doesn't have to be drawn, doesn't require a free hand, free, unlimited quantity, and can't be used against you.
It's not perfect though - there is no way to get item bonuses on Solar Flare.
The two things I would change for the Solarian is:
1) Making the level 1 feat Stellar Rush work with fly speeds
2) Something akin to Gate Attenuators for Solar Flare
An auto rune backup shot is fine... But then the class becomes "do these special abilities make up the gap vs fighter" and I think that's a no. I believe the ranged strike is somewhere you can put power while giving it a different niche.
@@SwingRipper I've not seen one in action to make a determination there, but I would rather see the special abilities get buffed over Solar Shot. Those abilities are what make the class unique and interesting.
The fact of the matter is that perfect class balance is a mirage - you can see it in the distance but you will never actually get there.
I think that it is much more important for people to want to play a class for the class fantasy, and then the class be able to live up to that fantasy in play. I love playing my earth/fire kineticist even though his damage output will never be consistently on par with the fighter or barbarian and his versatility not being on par with a true caster. I love playing my ruffian rogue grapple clawdancer even though wrestler would have been a more powerful archetype.
Investigator can also use intelligence to their ranged attacks if they study first.
You make a lot of solid points
I find that note on compatibility you showed in earlier videos interesting because while they never say "cross-balanced" outright, they do heavily imply that StarFinder 2e and PathFinder 2eR will not just be cross-compatible but also cross-balanced, this is interesting since I would expect that StarFinder characters should probably get earlier access to things like flight, so I would like to know how they handle that.
That is done in the equipment which was explicitly called out to be balanced differently in its section
Classes are explicitly called out to be cross compatible
@@SwingRipper Thanks for your reply and that makes sense!
personally im fine with the solarian being charged the "switch hitter tax", Solar Shot is usually a backup option, and you don't pick balanced solarian for Binaric Assault you pick it to be able to reattune as you wish, BUT Solar Shot definitely needs a range increment and item bonuses at least
Honestly i think the major concept mark that was missed was making Solarian str based and soldier con based. It would make more sense to me of those were reversed. And yes, it should use con for the attack.
I don't think the game needs Kineticist 2, if they want to go that route I just want to see normal kineticist get two more elements
@@SwingRipper That's fair, and I'm probably wrong, it was just that the concept in my head kinda fit better with that swap. However, I will say now that I've come up with a fun character concept that I wanna roll on the Solarian it almost instantly swapped my opinion on it XD. I wanna run a Skitterling Solarion using the grappling stuff they have. A little solar powered Stitch giving hugs XD.
I super suspect Solarion will be Str or Dex key in the final and they just threw in one for each score and stuck it to STR.
it does not bother me to much but i would make them str or dex
Honestly, solar shot can be outperformed by aweapon with returning rune.
Just let it use STR.
Maybe if people want to go into dex let them do so with idk one of the stellar arrangements or with a lvl 1 feat.
I mean it might be fine for them to use dexterity on that as long as they don't have to rely on it (By giving them other options to play around range enemies) and can build around other abilities. Maybe it should also be optional and you could take a different, ability instead that goes off of a different ability (Energy blasts can also absolutely scale with mental stats after all, or you could also allow them to focus more on melee by giving them a STr based close range option. Maybe an emanation attack that scales with Str for example). You could also allow them to take a Feat to give it the brutal trait.
I am just brainstorming though, haven't really gone into the class yet.
It might be cool to have Solarian to have two subclasses--the first being void, sun or balance, the second being focus on solar weapon(KAS str), solar shot(KAS dex) or balance between both. Each subclass can *use* both, but the focus becomes another tradeoff
How is it any different than archers in pf2e being suboptimal if they dont have some str for damage? I disagree that its underpowered. Just build 18 str/ 14dex /14 con and 12 in your favorite mental. Or if you really want a mental stat focus, accept lower accuracy on your blast. "But i want to be a face or something too" isnt an arguement for game balance.
Archers get to have a key ability score on accuracy and can fight at more than 35 ft away
If solar shot is the way it is right now, why would you pick solarian over a fighter with a cantrip or kineticist? It does not exist in a vacuum.
@@SwingRipper solarion with 14 dex has more accuracy than fighter with 14 int shooting needle darts, because you get automatic scaling proficiency in solar shot and not in cantrip accuracy. Also, solar shot is 1 action instead of 2, and has better damage and better rider effects (trip or persistent dmg). So it's really significantly better than a fighter using a ranged cantrip.
> needle darts
There is your issue, Frostbite does SOMETHING when an enemy succeeds their save and will have a higher expected output while not needing them to swap hands
If a main class feature is comparable to 1/3rd of the power budget of a single level 2 feat (second cantrip + two skill trainings from almost every caster dedication) that main feature is probably weak
@@SwingRipper taking lvl 5 as an example, and using the pure dmg version for easy comparison, solar shot does 2d6 + 5 + 1d6 dmg, and presumably is expert proficiency to hit, with 16 in dex. So spending the same action economy on both options we have solarian making a 2nd attack at -5.
Using our favorite pf2e damage calculator, set to high ac moderate saves, I created routines for these and the solarion attacking twice with solar blast does 7.2 dpr at lvl 1, 15.09 at lvl 5, dips down to 11 at lvl 8, back up to 15.4 at lvl 10. I couldnt' figure out how to model the non-scaling persistent fire dmg after that level so I only ran it lvls 1 to 10.
Meanwhile a fighter, whether or not he spends feats increasing his spellcasting DC (it made very little dpr difference surprisingly) does 3.3 at lvl 1, 6.8 at lvl 5, 8.8 at lvl 10. So its usually about HALF the dpr of the solarian. Not comparable at all, solarian is clearly better at this. for fun I compared it to your proposed change (str to hit and dmg) and the solarian gains between 1.5 and 3 dpr depending on the level.
Edit: oops, set both stats to start at 16 and get to 20. Redoing it with the correct 14 to 20 stat allocation shows a small loss of dpr to both cantrip and solar shot. It's still double dpr on the Solarian's side.
Maybe solar shot should be a reflex or fortitude save (depending on atunement) instead of a ranged attack. Otherwise I am not sure this is really that bad, it is in my mind the equivalent of a fighter using a crossbow when their enemies are outside of their sword's range. And nothing stops the Solarian from using a gun when they have to.
Solarion has always been a tough class concept. Any conversation about the Solarion has to start with the fact that they’re shoehorned in without context because someone at paizo thought “we need something like a Jedi” but couldn’t come up with anything connected to the setting, or with a coherent image.
The sun is boring, it’s energy without motivation
-there are no cool character concepts in media or film to draw on*
-there are no sun gods / sun cults in the setting that connect to the solarion,
-they should lean into the Kasatha lore more but they don’t
You could impute cooler sun stuff (or black hole stuff like worm holes, time dilation, growing and shrinking, hidden universes, etc). But for whatever reason paizo is locked in on the extremely boring surface- level physics.
Why do solarions have powers, are they an elect few? Is there some spiritual calling? Nobody knows or cares.
Why do their energy powers use physical muscle power? Not addressed. (They just needed a strength stat character).
There is no type of adventure or situation when you think “oh, that would be a great adventure to play a solarion”. Compare that with operative, mechanic, technomancer, mystic, solder. You can immediately think of great spy, techno-thriller/lost technology/new technology invention, magical, spiritual, warfare/gladitorial adventures.
Because solarions don’t want or do anything, and (unlike the Jedi / superman their role in the setting is not “I am the most powerful being on any planet I’m on”) they are really really hard to do. What do they do “fire damage I guess” or “black holes are… uh, bludgeoning damage?”. Like the 3 gravity powers are black hole,black hole and black hole.
The only thing you have to allocate power budget to is like… I do more fire, or I do more black hole.
You can critique it along the lines of “it should do more fire damage to be more in line with the fighter/barbarian dar” but that kind of misses the point.
They could easily have expanded solarion out to other cosmic phenomena (e.g. wormholes, gas giants, nebula, etc) and tried to make a kind of cosmic space druid/kinetisist. Which is at least half a concept.
Actually they should just have made Solarion 2 Kinetisist elements like Sun and Void. That would already make them 200% better. Like “during the gap the metal and wood elemental planes came into alignment now the “solar and void elemental planes are coming into alignment and the solar plane and the void plane are recruiting champions to restart their eternal battle”.
The SF2 version is much improved. But a space knight without the knight is just empty space.
These complaints also work against magus word for word
Replace "Solarian" with "Magus" all the celestial bodies with "Arcane"
The class has interesting stuff, its a good thing that it is not tied to one specific organization.
@@SwingRipper
Magus essentially became "how do we put anime swordman in Golarion", though a explanation to how they get their powers would be appreciated
They trained in both fighting and wizardry and do a bit of both, it doesn't need to be more than that
@@SwingRipper Oh I was talking about Solarion's explanation, I assume it must be the same thing or a technique passed down by other Solarions
You've landed directly on why it was so incredibly hard for me to make a character for Starfinder. It's just difficult to imagine a character in the vast majority of starfinder classes outside of Soldier, Mystic and Operative. I can't name a single fictional character off the top of my head that might be a Solarion or a Vanguard.
I'd come up with a cool idea for a Nanocyte, thinking that it'd be something like Senator Armstrong, Adam Jensen or the T-1000 from Terminator only to find out that it is, in fact, incapable of being anything like any of those characters. Inspector Gadget-style cyborg space pirate? That's not a nanocyte either.
I've got a whole trash bag full of starfinder character sheets I've thrown away thanks to them being non-starters because the core fantasies of the classes are so poorly defined and not reflected in the mechanics of the class. The mechanic is more of a hacker than a mechanic. The Biohacker is more of a poisoner than a scientist. I still don't know what a Nanocyte is.
Its a poor man's Kineticist. Look at what it does less of what a Kineticist does with extra limitations. The shield should switch with the shot. So that you as a base solarian can make a weapon shield or armor/aura. Give the shield the thrown trait. Solarian shot should be a level 1 class feat you can pic
No. Solarian doesn’t need the Brutal trait on their Solar Shot. The class is already hugely SAD and it’s going to want to have DEX anyway for reflex saves, which are going to be called for even more often than in Path thanks to the existence of area weapons. Just give the balanced Solarian a different starting ability (because right now it’s boring as all heck) and increase the range of Solar Shot so it can actually compete with using a sidearm.
Done. No other changes needed to Solar Shot.
Also apply solar crystal accuracy and were good
I disagree, Solarian is just a weaker melee all around, and after play testing the class, with its current feats, constantly had me saying in my head, “I can just play Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, or Ranger for the mystical warrior feel and flavor my focus spells or features as warping gravity and heat, or I can just play a Kinetiscist if I want to play a ranged Solarian and just flavor my features as manipulating gravity and heat.”
The Solarian does everything the martial classes can but worse, and can’t even stand toe to toe with the Kinetiscist in the range department let alone have their unique class features used more than once every 10 minutes or once every hour, compared to the Kinetiscist who can use it every round short of being brought out of their "stance."