Starfinder: Soldier with Magnetar Rifle

Advanced weapons are available to all martial characters through the Weapon Proficiency general feat. However, with Weapon Proficiency, when you hit level 5 your proficiency with martial weapons increases to expert, but not that with advanced weapons. This is unlike ancestral Weapon Familiarity feats.

The Magnetar Rifle is an advanced weapon (d12 Analog, Automatic, range 60ft, magazine 30, reload 1). The closest match with martial weapons are the substantially worse Machine Gun (d8 Analog, Automatic, range 40ft, magazine 20, reload 2) or Rotolaser (d8 Automatic, Tech, range 30ft, magazine 10~100 depending on level, reload 1)

Crucially, Area Fire and Auto-Fire use one’s class proficiency, not the weapon proficiency - which raises the question of how do the damage profiles for these weapons compare. So a Soldier using a Magnetar Rifle would use their lowered weapon proficiency for Primary Target and simple Strikes, and their full class proficiency for Auto-fire. At level 7+, this also lowers the benefit from Weapon Specialization.

Let’s analyse a full round of firing a rotolaser and compare it with a magnetar rifle. With both weapons, we’ll do Primary target -> Auto-Fire against a single target -> simple Strike.

# Install in JupyterLite
%pip install -q pathfinder2e-stats

import matplotlib as mpl  # noqa: F401  # Needed by JupyterLite
import xarray

import pathfinder2e_stats as pf2

Note: you may need to restart the kernel to use updated packages.

martial_atk = pf2.tables.SIMPLE_PC.weapon_attack_bonus.soldier.sum("component")
advanced_atk = (
    martial_atk
    - pf2.tables.PC.weapon_proficiency.soldier
    + pf2.tables.PC.weapon_proficiency.weapon_proficiency
)

atk_by_level = xarray.concat(
    [martial_atk, advanced_atk],
    dim="weapon",
)
atk_by_level.coords["weapon"] = ["rotolaser", "magnetar_rifle"]
atk_by_level.display(transpose=True)

	level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
variable	weapon
soldier	rotolaser	6	8	9	10	14	15	16	17	18	20	21	22	23	24	28	30	31	32	33	34
	magnetar_rifle	6	8	9	10	12	13	14	15	16	18	21	22	23	24	26	28	29	30	31	32

level = 5
atk = atk_by_level.sel(level=level)
area_fire_DC = (
    pf2.tables.SIMPLE_PC.area_fire_DC.soldier.sum("component").sel(level=level).item()
)
print(f"{area_fire_DC=}")

area_fire_DC=22

weapon_dice = pf2.tables.PC.weapon_dice.improvement.sel(level=level).item()
martial_weapon_specialization = pf2.tables.PC.weapon_specialization.soldier.sel(
    level=level
).item()
rotolaser = pf2.armory.starfinder.ranged.rotolaser(
    weapon_dice, martial_weapon_specialization
) + pf2.armory.upgrades.auto(level=level)

rotolaser

Damage 2d8 fire

# This is bespoke to the combination of class and Weapon Proficiency feat,
# so we need to handwrite it.
advanced_weapons_specialization = (
    xarray.DataArray(
        [0] * 10 + [2] * 10, dims=["level"], coords={"level": range(1, 21)}
    )
    .sel(level=level)
    .item()
)
magnetar_rifle = pf2.armory.starfinder.ranged.magnetar_rifle(
    weapon_dice, advanced_weapons_specialization
) + pf2.armory.upgrades.auto(level=level)

magnetar_rifle

Damage 2d12 piercing

enemy = pf2.tables.SIMPLE_NPC.sel(level=level, drop=True)[["AC", "saving_throws", "HP"]]
enemy.display()

variable	AC	saving_throws	HP
challenge
Weak	16	6	31
Matched	21	12	75
Boss	25	18	148

# both 'weapon' and 'challenge' are what-if analyses - let's compare the same dice rolls
# against progressively harder-to-hit enemies.
pf2.set_config(
    check_dependent_dims=("challenge", "weapon"),
    damage_dependent_dims=("challenge",),
)

primary_target = pf2.check(atk, DC=enemy.AC)
primary_target = xarray.concat(
    [
        pf2.damage(primary_target.sel(weapon="rotolaser"), rotolaser),
        pf2.damage(primary_target.sel(weapon="magnetar_rifle"), magnetar_rifle),
    ],
    dim="weapon",
    join="outer",
    fill_value=0,
)

auto_fire = pf2.check(
    enemy.saving_throws, DC=area_fire_DC, primary_target=primary_target
)

auto_fire = xarray.concat(
    [
        pf2.damage(
            auto_fire.sel(weapon="rotolaser"),
            rotolaser.area_fire(),
        ),
        pf2.damage(
            auto_fire.sel(weapon="magnetar_rifle"),
            magnetar_rifle.area_fire(),
        ),
    ],
    dim="weapon",
    join="outer",
    fill_value=0,
)

# Note: Primary Target does not increase MAP, but Auto-Fire does
third_strike = pf2.check(atk - 5, DC=enemy.AC)
third_strike = xarray.concat(
    [
        pf2.damage(third_strike.sel(weapon="rotolaser"), rotolaser),
        pf2.damage(third_strike.sel(weapon="magnetar_rifle"), magnetar_rifle),
    ],
    dim="weapon",
    join="outer",
    fill_value=0,
)

full_round = xarray.concat([primary_target, auto_fire, third_strike], dim="action")
full_round["action"] = ["primary_target", "auto_fire", "third_strike"]

Chance to hit

Note how the saving throw against auto-fire uses the same DC for both weapons, but it is influenced by the outcome of the Primary Target strike.

pf2.outcome_counts(full_round).stack(
    row=["action", "outcome"], col=["challenge", "weapon"]
).to_pandas()

	challenge	Weak		Matched		Boss
	weapon	rotolaser	magnetar_rifle	rotolaser	magnetar_rifle	rotolaser	magnetar_rifle
action	outcome
primary_target	Critical success	0.44976	0.34996	0.19948	0.09888	0.04992	0.04992
	Success	0.49971	0.49928	0.50144	0.50140	0.44966	0.34975
	Failure	0.00000	0.10023	0.24855	0.34919	0.44989	0.44957
	Critical failure	0.05053	0.05053	0.05053	0.05053	0.05053	0.15076
auto_fire	Critical success	0.05018	0.05018	0.05018	0.05018	0.34809	0.34809
	Success	0.00927	0.02831	0.14785	0.19820	0.25138	0.30083
	Failure	0.63947	0.62043	0.75113	0.70078	0.34969	0.30024
	Critical failure	0.30108	0.30108	0.05084	0.05084	0.05084	0.05084
third_strike	Critical success	0.19714	0.09956	0.05050	0.05050	0.05050	0.05050
	Success	0.50125	0.49898	0.39797	0.29790	0.19654	0.09796
	Failure	0.25067	0.35052	0.45020	0.45026	0.45135	0.45008
	Critical failure	0.05094	0.05094	0.10133	0.20134	0.30161	0.40146

Mean damage

total_damage = full_round.total_damage.mean("roll")
total_damage = xarray.concat(
    [total_damage, total_damage.sum("action").expand_dims(action=["TOTAL"])],
    dim="action",
)
total_damage = total_damage.stack(col=["challenge", "weapon"]).to_pandas()
total_damage

challenge	Weak		Matched		Boss
weapon	rotolaser	magnetar_rifle	rotolaser	magnetar_rifle	rotolaser	magnetar_rifle
action
primary_target	12.59890	15.60341	8.10443	9.09517	4.95016	5.84906
auto_fire	11.23759	16.10085	8.31895	11.70024	5.14770	7.13051
third_strike	8.06935	9.09409	4.49300	5.19927	2.68111	2.58713
TOTAL	31.90584	40.79835	20.91638	25.99468	12.77897	15.56670

Damage distribution

bins = full_round.total_damage.max().item() + 1
_ = (
    full_round.total_damage.stack(col=["challenge", "weapon"])
    .sum("action")
    .to_pandas()
    .hist(bins=bins, sharex=True, figsize=(10, 10))
)