I'm looking into playing a caster for my next character in Starfinder, and I was wondering what classes, subclasses, and archetypes people have used to make AoE damage dealing spellcasters. I know there are cone weapons and grenades and such, but I was hoping for some wizardly blasting of some sort.

I have played against and GMed with many of the monsters available in Starfinder 2e sources. Energy damage is common, yes, but physical damage remains frequent as well. So in that sense, dermal plating has constantly saved characters from plenty of pain, especially when facing large clusters of weaker enemies.

The item is very cost-effective. For example, a 1st-level, 180-credit item gives a character a constant resist 1 physical, while a 10th-level, 9,000-credit item nets a character a constant resist 5 physical.

Before the solarian errata, I played a 3rd-level radiant solarian, a 3rd-level degradant, and an 8th-level radiant. After the errata, I played a 3rd-level radiant, an 8th-level radiant, and a 13th-level radiant. Each of these characters was played across a total of eight combats and four noncombat challenges. I am now piecing together a sheet for a 16th-level radiant, which I will control along with the rest of the party for another eight combats and four noncombat challenges.

From 1st- to 7th-level, I think that the solarian is a reasonably competent melee martial, though still behind the mechanical effectiveness of, say, a post-remaster dragon or giant barbarian with ~13 base Hit Points and Sudden Charge.

Supernova and Black Hole are genuinely helpful abilities. Black Hole is especially good if the GM rules that it lets a flying solarian pull enemies upwards. However, they are very fight-dependent, ranging in usefulness from "completely blows away a tightly packed cluster of low-Fortitude enemies" to "of merely marginal use against the one or two high-Fortitude brutes that the party is fighting."

Low-level feats can be solid enough. Twin Weapons can generate an agile twin weapon. Stellar Rush is landbound and nowhere near as useful as Sudden Charge or Defensive Advance, and the photon version can hinder allies as much as enemies, but at least the graviton version can reposition enemies and place the solarian back in damage-dealing photon mode. Eclipse Strike is likewise useful for cycling out of an undesirable mode. Reactive Strike is Reactive Strike: usually great to have. Plasma Ejection is a decent, at-will use of two actions. Constellation Vortex can be good if the GM gives a generous ruling on what counts as "weapon damage." Cosmic Infusion is... okay if the party often fights skeletons and zombies?

Onto the downsides.

Solar Shot is weak. It is Dexterity-based, it has no item bonus, its range is low, and its damage does not scale that well. In Discord, Thurston Hillman has acknowledged that Solar Shot needs work, but that there is no time to patch it up during the playtest phase. Thus, the balanced arrangement, and every feat that keys off Solar Shot, is stuck in an underpowered state until release.

Nimbus Surge is very, very minor, and eats up a reaction. It has never been useful to me as a player.

Higher-level revelations are underwhelming. Defy Gravity works only in graviton, so you will need ultralight wings or some other flight source anyway. Solar Wind is landbound. Singularity and Big Bang do too little for four-action (three actions to activate + disharmony) abilities, and never mind that Singularity is useless against constructs and undead.

Higher-level feats are underwhelming. It has felt bad to pick out higher-level feats because of how situational they are. 10th-level Careful Strike has been reasonably useful, but Wormhole at 12th has seen zero combat uses across eight fights because of its two-action cost, and because enemies could have used the holes as well. I genuinely do not know what to pick at 14th and 16th for a radiant solarian, because the feats are just too situational; maybe Attuned Blow could save me from having to Eclipse Strike?

Fire damage is very feast-or-famine. Whereas a dragon barbarian can simply choose force damage, which encounters virtually no resistances or immunities, a solarian is stuck with fire for their damage-dealing mode. Sure, it feels fantastic to pound on fire-weak enemies, but attacking fire-resistant or fire-immune enemies feels bad.

Finally, solarians have a punishing equipment mechanic. If choosing a package of items based on item level, a solarian has to select a +attack crystal and a +damage crystal separately, unlike other martials, who can choose +attack and +damage as a single item. More importantly, a solarian can only ever have a single +1d6 damage upgrade (which, by the way, works only in one mode), whereas other martials can stack up to four on a single weapon (and while resistance applies to each of them, any one could potentially trigger a weakness, deactivate regeneration, or both).

If we compare raw damage between a painglaive dragon barbarian (who can choose force damage, instead of fire, and who has ~13 base Hit Points and Sudden Charge at 1st) and a reach solarian who tries to stay in photon as much as possible, the former will always win. At 1st level, the barbarian is swinging for 1d10+4+4 (average 13.5) compared to the solarian's 1d8+4+1 (average 9.5). At 15th level, the barbarian hits for 3d10+5+16+6+1d6+1d6+1d6 (average 54), while the solarian deals only 3d8+5+8+6+1d6 (average 36).

In my personal assessment, 8th level and above is when the solarian starts to lose its luster, and progressively becomes worse and worse compared to an equivalent dragon or giant barbarian. The dragon barbarian, for example, can have both Reactive Strike and Dragon's Rage Breath by 8th. (Move this down to 6th with Fighter Dedication and Reactive Striker.)

The 2e solarian could use plenty of polish. There were times when I felt very strong because of a perfect matchup, but those are outweighed by all the times that the solarian felt like a weaker version of a dragon or giant barbarian. I worry that this is only going to be exacerbated as I play at even higher levels.

This is just what I think, though. What have your experiences with 2e solarians been, particularly at the higher levels?

Is there an actual scale on the size of this station? I have looked around and found nothing. What it looks to me if the station is 5 miles Diameter as described in the core book are the arms included in that? If they are not the it looks like they add about 2.5 miles such as fog town or about 1.5 miles Cosmonastery the spike one YouTuber said it was hundreds of stories "down" say 250 stories or about 3,280 feet and each story about 10 feet tall. Does any of this makes sense to put this station into proper scale?

Title says it, I've seen a lot of homebrew for DnD (likely cause of how popularized it is)

But what's some starfinder homebrew you've made that you especially enjoy, or that your players really like?

If i have my gear array create fusion eyes and use them: Once per day, as a standard action, you can engage the miniature fusion generators contained within the fusion eyes, causing them to glow bright orange and flood a 15-foot cone with radiation; this otherwise functions as the irradiate spell, using your character level as the caster level.

can i dismiss it, re form it and do it again since it's arguably a new array?

Whether it is a solarian's 15th-level Singularity (which really is not that good for a 15th-level ability, and neither are Astrologic Sense and Big Bang), a singularity seed (which is, actually, a totally devastating 8th-level spell), or an event horizon, this game seems to think that gravity-themed damage is void damage.

This is not in PCs' favor, because constructs and undead are generally immune to void damage. I do not see why even the weakest of constructs and undead should get to tank a miniature black hole just because they are immune to negative energy.

The mystic and the witchwarper are competent simply by virtue of being 4-slot, spontaneous casters. However, even after the Quantum Pulse errata, I think that 1st- to 6th-level witchwarpers have little going for them compared to 1st- to 6th-level mystics; the quantum field's benefits are not especially fight-changing, and it takes actions to maintain. 7th level is when witchwarpers' prospects look much better, with focus spells like alternate outcome and forget.

There is a 10th-level witchwarper feat, though, that really elevates the class to an entirely new degree of mechanical power:

Twisted Dark Zone [action], Feat 10

Anchoring, Witchwarper, Zone

You expose this reality to a realm of pure darkness filled with gibbering voices and otherworldly entities. The area of your quantum field functions as though it were an area of 2nd-rank darkness. Creatures that begin their turn in the area must succeed at a Will save against your class DC or become confused for 1 round. They are then immune for 24 hours.

This is neither emotion, mental, nor visual. Very, very few enemies are immune to it. All of those low-Will, mindless enemies that would normally laugh at mental effects can easily succumb.

You immunize yourself and your party to Twisted Dark Zone at the start of the day. When initiative is rolled, you use your free Quantum Pulse to lay down the quantum field. On your first turn, you use 6th-level Enlarge Quantum Field, 10th-level Twisted Dark Zone, and, if necessary, 6th-level Quantum Transposition to reposition. The field now has a massive radius of 15 + 10 + 5 = 30 feet! The first time an enemy starts their turn in the zone, they need to make a Will save or be confused by a round. This can be a significant debilitation to enemies' round #1 or round #2 tempo.

Also, the zone is dark. Darkvision is cheap in this game: pahtra, android borai, vesk borai, ysoki borai, 150-credit darkvision visor, 600-credit darkvision capacitors. A surprising amount of enemies lack darkvision: even space-traveling asterays. Short of darkvision or an alternate precise sense, the zone blinds creatures and makes them treat normal terrain as difficult terrain: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2404

I have seen 9th-level Fangs of the Devourer and 10th-level Heliacal Maw ferocitums debilitated by this zone. First they got confused, and then they suffered due to their lack of darkvision. The ranged soldier's Anchoring Impacts dropped them down to Speed 5 feet, so given the difficult terrain, they were unable to move.

Hi there!

My group will be starting a Starfinder game soon, and as a Christmas gift I wanted to buy my GM a set of pawns! The question is... what to get?

We play in person, and right now my GM only has a very very cheap variety back of plastic fantasy toys that he uses in lieu of fancy miniatures. He used to be able to 3D print stuff for us, but his 3D printer has been out of commission for a while.

I wanted to get him a set of pawns that would be a good variety of weird alien stuff! He loves to embrace the bizarre and the goofy, so I thought he would appreciate it!

Would y'all recommend any of the Starfinder pawn sets, and if so which one would have the best variety of oddballs in there? Do you think getting a couple of different boxes is the best way to go (maybe a combo of "normal" NPC pawns and freaky aliens? or spaceships perhaps)? Or would you NOT recommend an official pawn box, and think I should go for something else instead?

Thank you for the help! It's much appreciated!

New to SF gm, looking for tips on running Threefold Conspiracy, especially on Foundry.

I am saying this after having played and GMed soldiers of different builds at different levels, from low to high.

First, let us have a look at the melee soldier.

How does a melee soldier compare to its archaic counterparts? It is certainly no barbarian, champion, or fighter, I think. If you are looking for the raw mechanical performance of such classes, you might be a little underwhelmed. For example, a melee soldier's Strike attack modifier is not especially accurate, with no key Strength, and a melee soldier has no equivalent of Sudden Charge or Defensive Advance.

How does a melee soldier compare to a ranged soldier? On the bright side, at the lowest of levels, its Whirling Swipes hit meaningfully hard: attribute modifier to damage matters quite a bit before that second damage die! A close quarters soldier's Punitive Strike is also a solid sanction against ranged attackers, though it might have accuracy issues. However, the extra damage matters less and less as the levels rise; weapons get more dice, characters acquire weapon specialization, and weapons get outfitted with energy damage upgrades. Also, at 8th level, Overwatch is a very good feat that lets ranged soldiers, especially bombards, join in on reaction-based attacking.

Melee soldiers have miscellaneous issues. Heavy armor Speed reduction + no Sudden Charge or Defensive Advance + Whirling Swipe being incompatible with Shot on the Run (one of the most consistently useful soldier feats) + no ultralight wings in heavy armor + jetpack costing more than ultralight wings and taking an action to activate = mediocre mobility. Sometimes, a melee soldier is stuck Area Firing with a backup weapon and a poor primary attack modifier. Sometimes, a melee soldier is a barathu just for the easy flight.

Does a melee soldier like a small, confined space? Hard to say. On one hand, enemies are nearby. On the other hand, allies are also nearby, and Whirling Swipe is not friendly.

In my opinion, by 8th level, the action hero is the second-best soldier, simply because the size of its cones is huge. The most consistently useful soldier, though? Bombard. Bombard, easily. The stellar cannon has the most all-around applicable range and AoE shape, and making it completely ally-friendly avoids awkward situations, such as in tight spaces. Near-automatic suppression makes: (1) Warning Spray more capable of halting an enemy advance, (2) Overwatch more likely to trigger, especially with a stellar cannon's longer range increment, and (3) Anchoring Impacts at 10th, another incredibly enemy-debilitating feat, much more reliable.

I have seen an action hero soldier and a bombard soldier in the same party, at 8th level and then at 13th. At both levels, they synergized reasonably well (Overwatch does not care about where the suppression came from), but the bombard soldier was doing most of the setup thanks to the near-automatic suppression.

Let us illustrate this a little more thoroughly:

• 2nd-level melee soldier vs. 2nd-level bombard. A reach two-hander deals 1d10+3 damage (average 8.5), ~55% higher than a stellar cannon's flat 1d10 (average 5.5)! Not bad, not bad at all.

• However, the melee soldier burdened by low Speed. If enemies are two or more Strides away, they cannot Whirling Swipe. The melee soldier is also frustrated by flying enemies. If they are a barathu, then their fly Speed in heavy armor is a measly 15 feet. The bombard soldier, meanwhile, simply uses Shot on the Run to Stride and then place a 10-foot burst out to a respectable 80 feet.

• If the party is fighting in a tight space, the melee soldier poses a friendly fire risk with Whirling Swipe, unless they default to just Striking (or in other words, acting as a worse fighter). The bombard, meanwhile, can avoid friendly fire.

• A melee soldier is taxed into taking Whirling Swipe. The bombard uses the same 1st-level feat slot on Warning Spray: a decent trick, especially with Overwatch at 8th and Anchoring Impacts at 10th.

• Midway into 8th level, with two energy damage upgrades on advanced weapons, a melee soldier is swinging for 2d10+4+2+1d6+1d6 (average 24), while a stellar cannon deals 2d10+2+1d6+1d6 (average 20). The increase is now only 20%, while the bombard is playing around with Overwatch and Anchoring Impacts: both of which are less useful for a melee soldier. (Keeping a melee brute enemy close to the melee soldier is a decent trick, but better still is to prevent the melee brute from reaching anyone at all.)

Hi all! I'm sort of new to Starfinder (and have never played Pathfinder), and I'm with a group right now, playing a Precog. We get these temporal anomalies, and one is called 'Reverse Extinction', wherein we can summon a creature, and it must be a "First World Beast."

Problem is, I have no idea what constitutes a First World Beast. Does anyone have a list or reference somewhere that specifies any/all of my options for first world beasts?

Thanks!

Pathfinder 2e classes have it relatively easy. A barbarian or fighter's Sudden Charge, a champion's Defensive Advance, a rogue's Mobility, etc. work with alternate movement modes.

Provisions for replacing Strides with alternate movement modes appear to be significantly less common in Starfinder 2e. The mystic's Convert Tempo; the operative's mobile reload, Tactical Advance, and Mobile Aim; the solarian's Solar Wind and Stellar Rush; and the soldier's Shot on the Run are all class features or feats I have either played with or GMed for, and yet their usage has always been curtailed by allowing only Strides.

This is a game where a [3rd/6th/9th/12th]-level item nets a character a permanent [20/30/40/60]-foot fly Speed, so these class features and feats allowing only Strides feels very inconvenient.

Currently theorycrafting my character's build for an upcoming campaign, but need to know if a specific synergy I had in mind actually works.

[Periastra Training] feat states that you can spend 1 Resolve Point to use a Stellar Revelation as if it was fully attuned. From my understanding, the 1st level [Supernova] is a Stellar Revelation.

The question is, does that mean that if I have the [Distant Burst] Stellar Revelation, I can spend 1 Resolve Point to use [Supernova] at a 40ft range while only on 1 attunement point?

Microgoggles provide a +2 insight bonus to any skill use that benefits from exceedingly close vision, such as detecting complicated forgeries or crafting drugs or medicinals.

But crafting doesn't use a skill roll, just the raw ranks. So, what exactly does the +2 insight bonus to crafting accomplish?

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Website: https://hephaistos.online/
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Hey Everyone,
The website has been updated to version 115 with the following improvements and fixes:

Improvements

• Updated the layout of the Starship Sheet > Quick section to be mobile-friendly and in line with the rest of Hephaistos.
• Homebrew Class Features can now have Equipment Tags.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed typo in the description of Witchwarper Paradigm Shift Arcane Override.
• Magic Hacks selected via Arcane Override now provide described benefits.
• Fixed issue where multiple Weapon Mount or Wheel Scythe modifications would not increase the number of mounts on a Vehicle.

Hephaistos 2E

https://sf2e.hephaistos.online/

• Added deities and domains from the Playtest (except the domains from Divine Mysteries).
• The "Deity or Philosophy" heading on the Creator > Details page can now be used to browse and select a deity.
• Mystic feats Deity's Domain and Advanced Deity's Domain now allow selection of the Domain and grant spells as described.
• Mystic feats Martial Discipline and Divine Fighting Technique now allow selection of the deity and grant the benefits described.
• Mystic feats New Epiphany and Syncretic Epiphany now allow selection of a secondary connection and grant spells as described.
• Pathmuncher export now includes proficiencies for the Computers and Piloting skill, and grade for Weapons, Armor and Shields.
• Fixed skill proficiencies provided by the Grifter and Scientist backgrounds.
• Fixed Operatives being erroneously trained in Intimidation.

If the thyr is in a containment suit/armor, does that mean they movement is 10? It seeks a touch debilitating.

Forever DM (5e), would love to play a SF campaign with others.

Is there a way to see if online groups need players or an online hub that shows in person groups in my area? Thanks

My group is taking a break from DnD 5e and we’re having an awesome time running Junker’s Delight, as we’ve been going through I’ve come across a few questions I was hoping to get help with:

1. Creatures so far have always had a lower EAC than KAC, is this always the case or are there certain enemies that are the other way around?

2. I started with a laser rifle and received an autotarget rifle as a reward. The analog and automatic properties seem nice but the extra bulk and the fact that I have melee focused allies makes me feel like the 1d8 of the laser is just better. Should I switch to the autotarget or keep the laser rifle?

3. Are there any alternate versions of character sheets? I feel like the entire right side of the second sheet is wasted for non spellcasters like our mechanic and our solarian and there needs to be more room for their personal abilities.

4. Are there any other apps, guides or miscellaneous tips that are common or useful for new or inexperienced players that we should know about?

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Edit: also, when is it best to attack twice and take the -4 and when is it best to attack once??

Im using the Simple sheet for a starfinder campaign on roll20 and cannot find the box to tick disable for query roll. I hate having "Input Value" pop up for every attack, makes combat painful.

Or, at least, a heavy focus on combat and adventure.

Sometimes, you just wanna roleplay a tad less, and shoot things in the head and explore ancient alien ruins, you know?