Character survival


Advice


So I've been playing the Dead Suns AP and we are a good ways into Chapter 2, and I found myself wondering how on earth I as an envoy/3 am expected to contribute meaningfully in fights.

I made a lashunta envoy/3 (phrenic adept) with skill synergy and extended telepathy because I thought it would be cool. I rapidly discovered an inability to do meaningful damage in combat, but I thought that's OK, envoy's have a more supporting role in fights, but I don't see my ability to grant Stamina as very effective when I get hit 6 to 9 times in a single fight and other PC's barely feel it. I guess I chose poorly. Whatever right. Well even on my non-combat skills the operative does them all better thanks his nice +2 bonus to skills and high stats. Again I guess I failed to optimize properly.

OK all that aside, what happens when an enovoy must fight alone, what do they do? While I wasn't exacly alone in our groups last fight, we were attacked by 13 of those flying scorpion monkey things. We have 6 characters (2 soldiers (1 melee and 1 ranged), 1 mystic (xenodruid), 1 envoy (me), 1 mechanic (stealth drone), and 1 operative (a detective)). I barely survived their poison as I failed 4 saves in a row, but at 1 point I was up against 2 of them. I thought to myself how am I supposed to kill them (even one of them) with a level 2 pistol? 2 of them has almost as many HP/stamina as me and they sure hit more often with their +9 to hit against my 16 (lowered to 12 thanks to several failed poison saves). What am I doing wrong?

The answer should not be take longarms and versatile specialization. If that is the case, then the game is a failure as a system as the game involves combat heavily and all classes must able to excel with what they are given to fight effectively in combat. If that is requirement for doing meaningful damage that is a huge oversight. I certainly don't feel like any of my abilities would have let my party members kill the 13 monkeys any faster and while we didn't get them all at once we certainly were not killing more than 1 or 2 of them in a round.


You have 4 options:
1. Covering/harrying fire. It's the ac/shooty version of aid another.
2. Use the envoy abilities to make enemis flat footed or impose to hit penalties on them. These should stack with #1 if you can do them as a move action. Doubling up on the ac/shooty aid another to negate the full attack penalty for your allies is good.
3. Sniper rifle & versatile specialization.
4. Take the advanced melee weapon feat and hog all the healing from the mystic.


So basically small arms are useless and I must bite the bullet and take longarms or sniper weapons. While I can accept that options 1 and 2 are good options when I have people to support or are supporting me. When I am pinned in a corner or alone, I am screwed. Option 3 is very similar to my original problem and option 4 is out of the question at least for the current time as I have a Strength of 10 so my +2 to hit is not going to cut the mustard. :)

In other words I have to suck it up and take the 2 feats and like it. That is really bad game design. Normally I see much better from Paizo. Now I am wondering why I wasted my money on this system. Thanks for earnest attempt with the advice. It is appreciated.


Icy Grip wrote:
So I've been playing the Dead Suns AP and we are a good ways into Chapter 2, and I found myself wondering how on earth I as an envoy/3 am expected to contribute meaningfully in fights.

Grenades. If you're up against 13 enemies, AoE with a saving throw for half sounds good to me. You're already proficient. If you spent your feats and your class and archetype on non-combat stuff, then the only thing left you have a choice over is your credits. Start spending them. At 3rd level you should be able to afford a bunch of frag grenades. 1d6 AoE save vs half or a 1d6+1 pistol shot which can miss.

However, I do also want to comment on your build choice.

Envoy's combat capabilities are tied up in their envoy improvisations. Expertise nor expertise talents give them combat capability (other than making skill rolls better in combat I suppose).

Phrenic adept has virtually no combat application until level 9 with either Charm Monster or Psyhokinetic Strangulation. Which even then will be once per day. The level 2, 4, and 6 swaps are utility and mental defense.

The class and archetype combination you've chosen I think is literally the least combat focused combination in the game. Mystics and Technomancers still have offensive spells. Mechanic will still have a drone to shoot things or full BAB and longarms with Exocortex. An operative still gets their trick attack. Soldiers and Solarians have combat feats built in plus full BAB.

But an Envoy without improvisations basically get 3/4 BAB and a pistol, especially if they then use their feat choices to reinforce their skills and ability to communicate.

Look at it this way, outside of combat you're a walking universal translator (I'm assuming you used Skill Synergy to grab mysticism as a class skill?) and skill monkey. You're probably the captain in Starship combat and the go to guy when interacting with aliens who you are not shooting at.

Phrenic Adept is good for combat base classes looking to add a bit more utility outside of combat or add some flavor. It makes sense on a Soldier. Its kinda of interesting on Operative. But its a poor choice for an Envoy that wants to do anything in combat. I admit it is kinda awesome for a Diplomacy focused Enovy that wants to be able to "diplomancer" anything that basically can think.

To be honest, if you want to shore up your combat capability in the near term , dip 1 level of Sharpshooter or Bombard Soldier (in which case put +2 into Strength at 5th) and take Versatile weapon specialization at 5th level. Skip over Longarms and go straight to AoE heavy weapons with 12 strength at 5th, then 14 strength at 10th.


It's made worse because you're right. The Operative blows every class out of the water in the skills department. It's enormously overpowered which makes the envoy, the dedicated skill class, feel underpowered due to a lack of combat options.

I've been playing an Envoy specializing in Dispiriting Taunt and Intimidate tactics for the early levels. Same AP.

Stuff That Happened:
However I've gotten myself a poor save roll and a bad case of Void Death which is hugely debilitating. Days of the Weakened condition at level 2 are not doing me any favors, so all I can do right now is Universal Expression, Dispiriting Taunt with my +11-14 bonus (Skill Focus + Expertise die, so basically +3-6) as it's one of the few things not horribly crippled by a -2 to all skill checks and -3 to all attack rolls.

To participate in combat I'm taking an unarmed strike route, and Improved Unarmed will be my lvl 3 feat. Unarmed is a non-operative simple weapon so it gets full level on damage from specialization. With Quick Dispiriting Taunt later I can taunt and attack in one turn, so that'll be an option. My str is currently 11 so I'm in the same boat minus the above spoiler. However Str and Dex are both planned for my personal upgrades and attribute increases to increase my combat threat. Even with the -5 damage from archaic against armored foes, it balances out alright.

The other big Envoy power I intend to use when I finally get to pick another one is Get 'Em. Very good support for the rest of the team.

As I say finally, much like you I decided upon an archtype, the Skyfire Centurion from Pact Worlds. It has combat bond abilities so I'll be getting a bunch more buff options. Harrying and cover fire bonuses will be doubled for my bonded ally, later I can share combat feats, and Concentrated Fire is huge. However the abilities have the cost of not getting my envoy improvs very often. The Phrenic Adept has a lot more ability swaps (6 vs Skyfire's 4) and from what I recall not a lot of appeal for me compared to the improvs.

Other options: Grenades. Envoys get grenade proficiency which has been useful, as I believe the only other member in my party with it is the soldier. Types of small arms, currently carrying a lazer and pistol just for resistance options. Made a dueling sword from a special material that helps a bit. As a melee presence flanking with our soldier is big.


I actually do pack grenades, but using them wasn't really an option in this scenario since the bad guys came from above and were on us in melee or near melee pretty quickly. However I did get a one shot off with my flame pistol and injured 3 of those pesky monkeys.

That being said I have used psychokinetic hand with a grenade once to amusing effect. I just looking for options to survive and kill something once its on me with what I have, but there are many trap options in Starfinder as I have discovered. I have gimped myself very nicely. I have 4 pistols including an static arc pistol and above mentioned flame pistol.

I barely lived through the mentioned encounter having rapidly gone through my hit stamina and majority of my hit points in addition to failing 4 of my DEX poison saves. Ironically the most damage I took was from our party mystic/medic who in an attempt to heal my poison issue did 9 HP to me to hit me with a needle pistols. I couldn't exactly argue being nearly paralyzed there.

So what I am hearing is, if you expect to do something in combat to save yourself once in awhile, you need to take the feats or multi-class or to put it more succinctly build a more optimized character. I only took Envoy because other than Operative & Technomancer none of classes have much in the way of appeal to me. I generally prefer my PC's to do more than I shoot or stab it.

I did go technomancer, but I encountered even more issues with that because quite frankly I didn't optimize that enough either. My party members literally all had better skills then me and spells at low level do carry water in combat for more than 1 to3 rounds. All of our combats last around 5-6 rounds generally which is too much for a low AC, low DPR character.

So it seems to me, the system actively encourage high levels of optimization to stay alive and be functional in any capacity. Again thanks for the advice.


I see you gave up one improvisation for the phrenic archetype (ugh), so with only one option left you should've picked up Get'em - it's the best one at all.

Before the Armory lands in august, the options for small arms are kinda terrible, but if you want to be a damage dealer with your Envoy, I'd have invested in a thunderstrike sonic pistol (1d8+1 ain't bad for a low level Face). Well, even a static arc pistol would've been better than what you have.

Or get a tier 2 or tier 3 computer, buy a control module for the best weapon found in the previous book that no one wants, and install it on a cheap vehicle. It's an extra attack with no penalties for you, although it'll barely ever land.

I'd also suggest getting under the knife for a dragon gland augmentation.

Also beg the GM to find a mnemonic editor mk 1 on the next bad guy and rewrite your level 2 and 3.

Icy Grip wrote:
we were attacked by 13 of those flying scorpion monkey things.

Your GM is mean, has poor balancing skills or didn't pay attention to the book. You were supposed to fight only 4 of them.

Icy Grip wrote:
Now I am wondering why I wasted my money on this system.

Wow.


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So you are APL of 4. Average level of 3 plus one for having 6 characters. The encounter as written in the AP calls for 4 stingbats, which would be a CR 5 encounter which would be considered challenging for a APL 4 party. Bumping up to 12 stingbats would be a CR 8 encounter which would be considered MORE then an epic encounter.

You are not really playing Starfinder, you are in a meat grinder where your GM is trying to kill you, or make it unfun for you. Talk to your GM, maybe they just don't understand the rules or that playing this way is not fun. If they don't change, then your only choices are 1) to leave this group and find one that is more fun, or 2) you can Min/max a character to compete with the GM.

In a balanced game you don't have to optimize, you can play your character, flaws and idiosyncrasies and all.


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Icy,

There are so many factors at play here that it's hard for me to accept that it's the system's fault. There's table variance, there's die rolls, there's role play, etc., but, for example, when you say you're getting cornered or swarmed by 13 enemies, I'm wondering about your teammates' ability to protect your character and I'm wondering about your GM's ability to properly run encounters. Why are teammates leaving you in situations where you're alone, and why is the GM throwing 13 enemies at you? That's a couple red flags right there.

Regarding your build, Envoy is a support class, and maybe going with your chosen archetype wasn't the best choice for combat. You'll never shine like a Soldier, Solarion, or Operative at combat. Never. Like playing a Bard in Pathfinder, an Envoy's contribution during combat can be difficult to see at first, but, for example, if you buff an ally and they only hit an enemy due to your buff, then all the damage they cause is YOUR damage, and if that damage leads to a kill, that's YOUR kill. Improvisations are so great, I would never trade them out. Additionally, Envoys can replenish Stamina, which is huge, especially in Starfinder Society.

I suggest talking with your GM and sharing your concerns. If you were at my table I would let you rebuild your current character or try a new one altogether. If you stick with Envoy, accept the fact that you will not be a combat master, and perhaps give the buffing/support build a try. Your teammates will love it. Also, tell your GM that The Goat Lord says that 13 flying monkeys is too many, bub.

I've been running Starfinder as a GM weekly since release, and I've played in several society games. In my experience, Envoys have been a great boon for parties. I wish your experience was the same, and I wish you could grab a seat at my table and join us in having fun with this great system.


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Envoy is a rock-solid class - extremely useful to any party it's in. I'll start right there.

However, all Archetypes in the game should come with a disclaimer that you shouldn't play one the first time out. They are interesting, and at higher levels some of them are even really powerful, but they break whatever class you choose (some more that others) and when it comes down to it, you're not really that class when you choose an archetype so you can't compare it to other characters that have no archetype. Until you understand how the class works, you can't really make an informed decision about whether a particular archetype is really what you think it is. You might think an Envoy is the right base for a given archetype for your story, but if you understand the classes better, you might realize that an Operative or a Mechanic is more in-line. I strongly suggest you ask your GM to let you rebuilt your character as a vanilla Envoy and then see how things go.

Second - your GM needs to take Remedial Game Balance 101. I hope your party got plenty of XP for facing all those kaukarikis. That was an epic-level encounter so for your party, if I did my math right, *each member* should have gotten something like 3600xp (rather than whatever the base XP in the book is for those critters). Remind your GM that it's not his job to compete with the players, it's his (or her!) job to make the game fun and challenging. If your GM things there's a scenario whereby he (or she) can win and beat the players, you need to kindly ask that person to step aside and let someone else run the game. Harsh? Yes, maybe, but a GM that feels it's their job to compete with the players is, quite simply, a terrible GM, and that will, in turn, make the game not feel fun for anyone.

Finally - don't give up on Starfinder! It's a great system, it's just a matter of learning the details. Work with your GM (presumably, they're a friend, so just talk with them!) and get things sorted out. It is a very fun game, I promise! :)


The Goat Lord wrote:

Icy,

There are so many factors at play here that it's hard for me to accept that it's the system's fault. There's table variance, there's die rolls, there's role play, etc., but, for example, when you say you're getting cornered or swarmed by 13 enemies, I'm wondering about your teammates' ability to protect your character and I'm wondering about your GM's ability to properly run encounters. Why are teammates leaving you in situations where you're alone, and why is the GM throwing 13 enemies at you? That's a couple red flags right there.

Regarding your build, Envoy is a support class, and maybe going with your chosen archetype wasn't the best choice for combat. You'll never shine like a Soldier, Solarion, or Operative at combat. Never. Like playing a Bard in Pathfinder, an Envoy's contribution during combat can be difficult to see at first, but, for example, if you buff an ally and they only hit an enemy due to your buff, then all the damage they cause is YOUR damage, and if that damage leads to a kill, that's YOUR kill. Improvisations are so great, I would never trade them out. Additionally, Envoys can replenish Stamina, which is huge, especially in Starfinder Society.

I suggest talking with your GM and sharing your concerns. If you were at my table I would let you rebuild your current character or try a new one altogether. If you stick with Envoy, accept the fact that you will not be a combat master, and perhaps give the buffing/support build a try. Your teammates will love it. Also, tell your GM that The Guoat Lord says that 13 flying monkeys is too many, bub.

I've been running Starfinder as a GM weekly since release, and I've played in several society games. In my experience, Envoys have been a great boon for parties. I wish your experience was the same, and I wish you could grab a seat at my table and join us in having fun with this great system.

Well I was only cornered by two monkeys but 2 is enough and while I certainly don’t think I should be as good at combat as the soldier I feel like I should able to defeat a single CR1 monster on my own without needing to hit it an average of 5 times. It has half my HP+ stamina, but over twice my to hit and it does nearly double my damage on average. Honestly I would prefer to play a bard, as I feel its a stronger class. No class in this game should ever be relegated to merely support as too much of this game like its predecessor relies on combat. As a bard I never thought to myslef I can’t kill my enemies even at low levels. Your points hwever are well taken. I will certainly discuss my concerns. Most of my fellowplayers do not see the problems, but they play sodiers and an operative and the other two don’t seemingly care about the glaring issues.


I'm not sure I'd categorize your issues as glaring game problems. You specifically sub-optimized (for combat) while playing a class that's already not combat optimized, and surprise, you're not great at combat.

Adding what seems to be a GM who hasn't mastered the art of getting encounters right to that, and of course your character isn't doing great.

I think we'd have to see your character stats if what you're looking for is to make this character better at fighting and not dying.

Of course, there's also the easiest solution. Which is to tear your character down and start over from scratch to get to the level of fighting ability you’d like.


My advice is to jump in the Mnemonic Editor the first chance you get and train out of being a Phrenic Adept. Put a pin in the idea of playing an archetype until later, when you're not playing a class whose utility is 80% class features that get removed by an archetype.

I love every Envoy that I wind up at a table with. Get 'Em, Inspirational Boost, Watch Your Step, and Clever Attack/Feint are all really solid abilities.

Do it right, and you don't NEED to be effective in combat yourself; your companions become death machines just because you're there.


Draco makes another good point. Though I was staying on the side of 'the op seems to dislike that every character doesn't fight well, so let's so how we can get there.'


Put me in the "your problem is not your class, your problem is the adventure design" column. There is no class that is going to feel great when faced with *13* equivalent level enemies. There is no class that is going to be feeling great when faced with *2* equivalent level enemies at once.

The Envoy is a support class, its purpose is to augment the capabilities of your party and hinder the capabilities of the enemy. This isn't going to matter when the GM throws opposition against you that beggars any possibility of victory.


I'm starting to think archetypes need a different approach in this game, compared to Pathfinder.

Instead of a way to make your character stronger or less sucky, they should be viewed like prestige classes.

Pick an archetype you like, then choose a class that works with it and suits your play style. Want to play a hacker, or a "starfinder data jockey"? Choose the archetype, and then decide if a mechanic or technomancer suits it better. Want to be a cop? Grab the Steward Officer archetype and see if the soldier or solarian fits it better - maybe even an exo-mechanic.

This might lead to a decrease of complaints and increase in usage of such classes - not a lot of people seem to talk about them.


If your picking an archetype to make yourself stronger, either you or Paizo is doing it wrong in the first place. Archetypes should not be stronger than the base class, merely different.


Metaphysician wrote:
If your picking an archetype to make yourself stronger, either you or Paizo is doing it wrong in the first place.

That's how many of them worked in Pathfinder.

And although they share the same name, the Starfinder archetypes are quite different - that's why I'm suggesting taking another look at them when creating a character.


The Ragi wrote:

I'm starting to think archetypes need a different approach in this game, compared to Pathfinder.

Instead of a way to make your character stronger or less sucky, they should be viewed like prestige classes.

Pick an archetype you like, then choose a class that works with it and suits your play style. Want to play a hacker, or a "starfinder data jockey"? Choose the archetype, and then decide if a mechanic or technomancer suits it better. Want to be a cop? Grab the Steward Officer archetype and see if the soldier or solarian fits it better - maybe even an exo-mechanic.

This might lead to a decrease of complaints and increase in usage of such classes - not a lot of people seem to talk about them.

Archetypes absolutely require careful consideration to take. I grabbed Steward Officer on my Nuar Technomancer only after determining that my primary combat ability was going to be Junksword, and that the class features that got affected wouldn't hinder me greatly (the Magic Hack for 2nd level gets delayed to 5th, when I get two at once, the 4th level ability lowers your known spells of your highest level by 1, which isn't a problem if I'm mostly using Junksword; the 9th level feature is a lost magic hack, but that's far enough into the build that I can work around it).

What I'm gaining with Steward Officer was two of the best class skills for Society play, Diplomacy and Culture, and the ability to Demoralize with Diplomacy and identify humanoids with Culture, and Improved Unarmed Attack (great with the Nuar Natural Weapons racial) at 4th and Improved Combat Maneuver (Disarm) at 6th (basically letting me disarm at a net -2 with a properly configured Junksword, which might be even dice or above with flanking, Get 'Em!, or a debuff on the enemy. So everything in the archetype worked towards the specific image I had in my head of the character, a minotaur wizard cop who could talk down criminals and defeat them nonlethally if needed.

That said, I was considering taking Starfinder Forerunner on my dwarf mystic because I envisioned her as an adventurous, spelunking priest of Torag, but losing her highest connection power as a Star Shaman did not really suit my purposes, so I am giving her some multiclassing and planning to use her Mystic powers in support of her general adventuring skills, feats, proficiencies, and specializations instead.


Pantshandshake wrote:
Draco makes another good point. Though I was staying on the side of 'the op seems to dislike that every character doesn't fight well, so let's so how we can get there.'

I was more thinking I can’t kill a CR 1 monster in a round or two, when I have no recourse such as the fight I was describing. Envoy abilities are great if you face 1 or 2 opponents who are not too much greater than the party. On average as it stands I must score 4 hits kill an 18 hp monster. I am just thankful my GM forgot about AOO’s and decid d not to full attack me since he could still hit me on 7’s after a few failed poison saves. There wasn’t a party member who didn’t have their hands full for at least 3 of our 6 round combat.

I am a damaya lashunta envoy/3 (phrenic adept]. Str 10 Dex 14 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 10 Cha 18 , feats: skill synergy, extended telepathy, equipment: lashunta tempweave armor, static arc pistol, flame pistol, azmuth laser pistol, 2frag grenades, class abilities: expertise (diplomacy, sense motive, intimidate), expertise talent (extra expertise), inspiring boost. My theme is spacefarer.


Icy Grip wrote:


Well I was only cornered by two monkeys but 2 is enough and while I certainly don’t think I should be as good at combat as the soldier I feel like I should able to defeat a single CR1 monster on my own without needing to hit it an average of 5 times. It has half my HP+ stamina, but over twice my to hit and it does nearly double my damage on average. Honestly I would prefer to play a bard, as I feel its a stronger class. No class in this game should ever be relegated to merely support as too much of this game like its predecessor relies on combat. As a bard I never thought to myslef I can’t kill my enemies even at low levels. Your points hwever are well taken. I will certainly discuss my concerns. Most of my fellowplayers do not see the problems, but they play sodiers and an operative and the other two don’t seemingly care about the glaring issues.

I understand.

One thing to keep in mind is that a CR 1 creature is designed to be an average challenge for a party consisting of four level 1 PCs. If you are only level 1 and face a CR 1 creature, that is going to be quite a challenge, especially for your Envoy build. If you are level 2 and are alone against a CR 1 creature, that is still going to be tough to overcome. It won't be until you have several levels under your belt before you're going to be dropping CR 1 creatures with a single shot from a small arm. Defeating a CR 1 creature alone in less than 5 hits is something most non-soldier/solarion/operative builds will struggle with.

Dataphiles

My question to the OP is, did you or anyone in your party go unconscious? If so, what was the lowest your RP got?


Right, so you took a support class, and went 100% support on it. There's nothing in your stats, equipment, or class choices that lean towards combat.

This is why you're not great in combat. It has nothing to do with the game. If you're feeling like playing a great support role isn't your style, or isn't working in your game, it's time to chat with your GM about a new character or a complete rebuild on this character.

And, as has been stated, most characters are going to have a hard time one or two shotting an enemy of approximately equal CR. That's just how the game works. If we still had Pathfinder style fights, it would 2 rounds of everyone shooting from 100 feet away, and then over.


I can only echo what was said here. You've gone for a very social focus, so when those things come up, or you need to secretly share information, you'll be great.

Your combat is going to be weaker as a result. You can talk to your GM about rehashing your dude, or try to capitalize on those times when you interact with other intelligent creatures.

Last thing, for a party of 6, 13 of those monkeys is way too many. It's astounding that you didn't wipe.


The Ragi wrote:
Metaphysician wrote:
If your picking an archetype to make yourself stronger, either you or Paizo is doing it wrong in the first place.

That's how many of them worked in Pathfinder.

Well, yes. That's why I say "either you or Paizo". In those cases, the one doing it wrong was Paizo. ;)


The Goat Lord wrote:
Icy Grip wrote:


Well I was only cornered by two monkeys but 2 is enough and while I certainly don’t think I should be as good at combat as the soldier I feel like I should able to defeat a single CR1 monster on my own without needing to hit it an average of 5 times. It has half my HP+ stamina, but over twice my to hit and it does nearly double my damage on average. Honestly I would prefer to play a bard, as I feel its a stronger class. No class in this game should ever be relegated to merely support as too much of this game like its predecessor relies on combat. As a bard I never thought to myslef I can’t kill my enemies even at low levels. Your points hwever are well taken. I will certainly discuss my concerns. Most of my fellowplayers do not see the problems, but they play sodiers and an operative and the other two don’t seemingly care about the glaring issues.

I understand.

One thing to keep in mind is that a CR 1 creature is designed to be an average challenge for a party consisting of four level 1 PCs. If you are only level 1 and face a CR 1 creature, that is going to be quite a challenge, especially for your Envoy build. If you are level 2 and are alone against a CR 1 creature, that is still going to be tough to overcome. It won't be until you have several levels under your belt before you're going to be dropping CR 1 creatures with a single shot from a small arm. Defeating a CR 1 creature alone in less than 5 hits is something most non-soldier/solarion/operative builds will struggle with.

As a first approximation, you can use the "multiple opponents" rules in reverse, and guess that a single opponent vs a single PC is roughly equivalent in difficulty to CR +4 ( if four NPCs = +4 vs the CR of one of them; one PC when their should be four is about the same ). Note that this logic means one level X PC vs one CR X NPC is a Beyond Epic encounter ( CR +4 ), which fits; two identical foes should result in a fight where the outcome is a coin toss at best and whoever wins is probably seconds from collapsing too.

Thus, once again. . . A CR 3 hero, even under favorable circumstances, should not be expecting to have a fun time fighting off several CR 1 opponents. A single CR 1 enemy taken solo is the equivalent of a CR 5 encounter for a team. CR +2 fights are not easy, and not supposed to be easy.


Soooo I should revise my expectations of this game. While I did not expect this game to be pathfinder in space, I didn’t expect combat be such a large hill to roll a boulder up. It’s starting to sound like this game isn’t for me then.I appreciate the time you all took to explain it to me. Having built and played many classes in Pathfinder, I never felt the frustation with combat that I do repeatedly in this one. I certainly felt it with the Technomancer at 1st level and I continue to feel it through 3 levels of envoy with my 2nd character. I could say more but that would not be constructive.Thank you all again.


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Icy Grip wrote:
Soooo I should revise my expectations of this game. While I did not expect this game to be pathfinder in space, I didn’t expect combat be such a large hill to roll a boulder up. It’s starting to sound like this game isn’t for me then.I appreciate the time you all took to explain it to me. Having built and played many classes in Pathfinder, I never felt the frustation with combat that I do repeatedly in this one. I certainly felt it with the Technomancer at 1st level and I continue to feel it through 3 levels of envoy with my 2nd character. I could say more but that would not be constructive.Thank you all again.

I'm not sure you are getting what we're putting down here.

You didn't do well in the fight you mentioned because you selected an archetype that removes half of your class's combat utility in exchange for largely RP bonuses. Also your GM seems to be ridiculously sadistic without informing the players that they need to build their characters to contend with a much higher threat level than the adventure calls for.

The problem here is not Starfinder combat. You just need to tweak your character (and get a better GM). If you don't believe me that Envoys pull their weight, listen to the Cosmic Crit podcast; they swear by their Envoy, and he has never bothered to get longarm proficiency.

If you want to peace out of Starfinder over this issue, that's certainly your prerogative; no game is for everybody. But just be clear about exactly why you're dropping it: you had a bad experience with a particular GM using a sub-optimal character. You might be here saying how great Starfinder is if you had played with a great GM that helped you design your character for the kind of campaign he or she was running.


It's like you are not even bothering to read what anyone wrote.

But if you want to /ragequit, better to do it and get it over with, instead of lagging behind complaining how the game didn't pick up your slack.

Better luck on your next system.


I'd put it more bluntly: read what we are actually saying. We are saying that your GM is either incompetent or evil. There is no such thing as a system that cannot be rendered un-fun if the GM throws 3-4 times as much opposition against you as is intended to be balanced. Its his fault for not reading the rules, specifically the encounter difficulty rules.


True, if unnecessarily harsh, but that's only part of it.

A lot of the combat impact of Envoys is dependant on their Improvisations.
As a Phrenic Adept, that's all of one at that level, with no more before 8. And the level 1 chosen here isn't exactly the most impactful to begin with - not on its own.
An archetype that expensive (it literally couldn't cost you more) means either a utility character, or relying on said archetype for combat prowess. And that's not where the Adept shines, especially not that early, where it gives nothing but - again - utility.

So there's a bit of system mastery, or lack thereof, in this : OP has accidentally traded off most, almost all of, their combat related stuff for slow burn utility. And is not happy about that, I'm guessing because they didn't realize they were doing it in the first place.

Which is fine : game is still new, mistakes were made.
I don't quite get why it's become such a big deal.

Either check with your GM if you can correct some of them, or make peace with it and adapt. There's still time. But what you have can and likely will be useful at some point.
Combat is just not what you've built for, not with the choices you've made, yourself. Now, you've figured out your weaknesses - clearly - so identify your strengths, and understand how to leverage them.

As an aside, Operatives might be better all-rounders skill wise, but you should excel in your chosen domain of expertise. That tends to be the deal with those two classes.

Giving up on a whole system based on the performance of a level 3 character, expecting him to be performing in the things you've very specifically chosen to sacrifice ? A bit weird.
Not unlike complaining a 6 Int wizard isn't doing great in PF.
But hey, your game, your choice.

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