Space. It seems to go on and on forever.
But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you.
Space Pilot 3000 – Futurama
After much anticipation, previews, and waiting, Paizo has finally released the Starfinder 2e Playtest documents. I have been taking the time to play around with some of the options to get a feel for how things are and I will be sharing those here in this blog post. But first a bit of side context for how I and my friends occasionally play something we like to call PathBuilder eXtreme.
PathBuilder eXtreme is a bit of a gimmicky way to play PF2e where we set a time to get together and play one extreme encounter using the rules for creating a PC at higher level. The important part is that we have a lump sum of money and can only have items up to one level below our PC. This does minor things to the math at certain levels and we’re all aware of this. When the Starfinder 2e Playtest came out we simply incorporated those options into our normal shenanigans.
Starfinder 2e Playtest Class Thoughts
Soldier
The first thing I tried out was Soldier, because I am Heavy Weapons Guy. I tried it out with Action Hero and a Machine Gun, which gave me quite a large cone to work with. I recall my allies being a Champion and a Rogue. We were facing off against a pack of Marsh Giants led by a Fire Giant. Some people have voiced concerns about spammable cones being too strong but I found it to be an appropriate amount of power. The area can be quite large, and even that isn’t guaranteed based on weapon choice, but the damage is generally less than a cantrip. I had plenty of fun playing the Soldier.
After that fight, we had some extra time so I retooled my Soldier from Action Hero to Bombard and traded in my Machine Gun for a Flamethrower. The area was significantly less than Action Hero, but that was fine against more melee threats. The ability to worry less about my allies’ positioning when firing the cone was welcome and the ability to suppress even the targets that succeeded vs the Area Fire made this style fun as well.
Mystic
I’ve run a few brief encounters with the Mystic, trying both a Shadow and a Rhythm. I found the Vitality Network to be good, but I have also found that it’s a little cumbersome if the other players are not familiar with it. Players usually expect the Healer to tell them how much healing they will get and sometimes stumbled if I asked them how much more they would need to cap out after I already used a Two-Action Heal on them. If you’re going to play a Mystic, just make sure everyone understands how it works so that they expect this kind of question.
Operative
I learned two things while playing a Skirmisher Operative in the one encounter I’ve had: Hair Trigger is nice, but it’s still only one extra attack without Aim and having an unusual damage type like Sonic from a Boom Pistol shreds Swarms. There’s been a lot of hand wringing over Hair Trigger, but I found it to be unfounded. Had I been a Fighter with Reach, I would have had just as many Reactive Strikes by making things approach me every round. The main advantage I had over that was being able to also take a potshot if the creature my friends were fighting about 30 feet away, such as when the above-mentioned swarm took a Move action.
Witchwarper
I had a brief combat as a Witchwarper that I feel was not very indicative of typical play. There were three of us against two Medusa (Medusas? Medusae?) and the fight quickly imploded due to Petrification. The Quantum Field bubble was at least fun to use and did help slow down the Medusa a bit, but we did lose this fight. It wasn’t difficult to sustain the Field because I was using Quantum Transposition to move it around as my Sustain. That didn’t stop the Medusas from crit saving against my Fireball. Can’t solve for dice luck.
Starfinder 2e Playtest Ancestry Thoughts
Shirren
Aside from playing the new classes, I’ve also done some experimentation with the new Ancestries on existing classes. One notable trick I managed to make great use of is a One for All Swashbuckler with the Shirren feat Eager Assistant. Having an extra Reaction that can only be Aid allowed me to make use of One for All and still have another Reaction for Charmed Life or Guardian’s Deflection in that fight, but that’s not the only possible trick.
If I had a Double Slice Fighter on my team I could have used One for All once and then Aided both swings of Double Slice as an example. Another Shirren trick I tried out was using the Swarm Exile’s Bio Cannon with Flurry of Blows. Yes, it works that way. It’s a very silly ranged Monk.
Starfinder 2e Playtest Final Thoughts
I think the Starfinder 2e Playtest is already pretty fun and is showing off Pathfinder 2e cross-compatibility that works. There are some rough edges as far as the editing in the book that need to be addressed, but I found the whole thing to be enjoyable.
