Forums: Playtest General Discussion: Weapon Discussion/Criticism (2024)

Remember Seeker Rifle also was Errata'd to be 1 shot per magazine.

Anyways it feels weird when I look at the Sniper Rifles and go, wow the Longbow seems better. All these traits seem fine but fatal d12 is nice only when you crit and even then I think the longbow's ability to not require a reload makes it superior still!

Not to mention I think the Semi-automatic Pistol is hands downs the best 1 handed gun...Errr Simple Weapon so far in the game. Not that it being simple is a real issue, name one class who would use a simple weapon over a martial weapon when using a weapon. If I recall all classes that want to use weapons are trained in martial weapons, correct? (This goes for the Starfinder 2E Playtest and Pathfinder 2E)

Thinking about some of the weapons with no home among the Starfinder classes, the Nano-Edge Rapier specifically just... being a reprinted Rapier, which is a bad weapon for every class in the Starfinder book.

Which kind of got me thinking of the archaic problem and how I'd want a character using these weapons to work. If I chose to play an archer in Starfinder (I wouldn't but for example) I'd want her to have nanocarbon arrows that fit into the tech level of the setting. The archaic trait is kind of pointless for player facing options because if it means anything then the weapons are useless, but if it doesn't mean anything then you've got a verisimilitude issue.

It seems pretty reasonable to me to just say that the rapier in the Pathfinder book is a nano-edge rapier if wielded by a Starfinder character, and save the page space spent on reprinting weapons like that on the weird stuff that is uniquely Starfinder.

Agreed. While the Crossbolter is cool, it's just a modern crossbow. They are probably gonna add a modern bow too, since Starfinder 1E had one.

The Pathfinder Legacy Game Mastery Guide had an optional rule called High-Quality weapons, which were nonmagical weapons with the effects of Fundamental Runes (I allowed them in my game, because I supported the idea that a weapon can just be made that good, and it would make sense for say, a Superstition Instinct Barbarian to favor such an item). I renamed them to Masterwork items in my game, and will use the term in my example below to refer to Starfinder's Weapon/Armor/Shield Improvement system.

At that point, it seems like it'd be simpler to just say, "Here is a Pathfinder weapon/armor/shield. It can have either the Analog trait or the Archaic trait. No matter what you pick, their upgraded cost is the same, and happens at the same level. The difference is an Archaic weapon would become a Magic Weapon, and an Analog weapon would become a Masterwork weapon (or another Starfinder appropriate term).

The Archaic item can become a Magic item, and can get property runes and be made from a Special Material.

Meanwhile, an Analog item would instead get it's choice between 1 initial Upgrade slot, or a Special material, and its higher tier forms would grant it upgrade slots.

Additionally, the Archaic item can interact with the optional rule where Tech and Analog items get resistance to Archaic items. Though I think the text calling archaic items weaker should be stripped from the Player Core description, but explained in the GM Core optional rule.

Advanced weapons seem broken. Not mechanically per se but in the sense that it's impossible to gain fully scaling martial proficiency with them, which means the only classes that can wield them normally are ones that get innate proficiency or never reach master in the first place.

Is "advanced melee weapons are for mystics only" really the intended takeaway here?

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

Remember Seeker Rifle also was Errata'd to be 1 shot per magazine.

This has not been errata'd yet (it's not on the official errata page). It was merely commentary that it "might" be misprinted.

It does currently have two "actual" downsides relative to a laser rifle, that being reload 2 and the inability to ever get more than 6 shots per reload.

I would drop the archaic trait entirely and just pile more traits on futuristic weapons to indicate that they are better. I mentioned this in another thread that it's a weird inconsistency that "your old-timey rapier, no matter how magical it is, is worse at penetrating modern armor" but actual claws and punches do not have this problem even though you're doing those with your basic anatomy that is not necessarily futuristic.

Like Pathfinder has a certain budget for weapon traits, I don't see why Starfinder can't have a strictly better baseline for weapon traits, including some that simply do not appear on archaic weapons.

If anything that difference between "high tech" and "low tech" should exist on armor, not weapons, since "knives" have been very effective weapons for thousands of years and will likely continue to be so. But a 5.56×45mm NATO bullet will certainly penetrate gambeson, but wouldn't necessarily penetrate modern body armor.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I would drop the archaic trait entirely and just pile more traits on futuristic weapons to indicate that they are better. I mentioned this in another thread that it's a weird inconsistency that "your old-timey rapier, no matter how magical it is, is worse at penetrating modern armor" but actual claws and punches do not have this problem even though you're doing those with your basic anatomy that is not necessarily futuristic.

Like Pathfinder has a certain budget for weapon traits, I don't see why Starfinder can't have a strictly better baseline for weapon traits, including some that simply do not appear on archaic weapons.

If anything that difference between "high tech" and "low tech" should exist on armor, not weapons, since "knives" have been very effective weapons for thousands of years and will likely continue to be so. But a 5.56×45mm NATO bullet will certainly penetrate gambeson, but wouldn't necessarily penetrate modern body armor.

The same old timey enchanted rapier that could have been used to fight an elder dragon, I might add.

From the Unwieldy Trait thread my eye caught this.

Not to mention the Shirren-eye Rifle has Kickback instead of Breakdown which makes it objectively worse then the Assassin's Rifle and makes it worse then the two 150ft Pathfinder 2E guns mentioned earlier. the Shirren-eye Rifle should either have Unwieldy or Knockback but not both. If it keeps both then switch Fatal d12 for Deadly making it slightly better. Other wise why is the Shirren-eye Rifle strickly worse then the Assassin Rifle in terms of effectiveness? Why!?