Starfinder: Creature Creation

For the last couple of days, I have been playing around with the creature creation rules in the appendices of the Alien Archive book. I decided to have a go at recreating a babau demon for Starfinder. The first step is to select an array. You may choose a combatant, expert or spellcaster array. Since the babau is described as an assassin demon, I chose the expert array since it would require a fair number of skills. The babau is a CR 6 monster in Pathfinder, so that is what I used to acquire EAC, KAC, HP, save modifiers, skill modifiers, ability modifiers and number of special abilities from the array. This results in somewhat lower ability modifiers than the Pathfinder babau and an oddly high Will save, but otherwise reasonable results. We have the option to switch save modifiers to better match the creature concept, so I switch Fort and Will.

Next steps are creature type and subtype grafts, in this case, outsider and demon. The former provides darkvision and some save and attack bonuses, while the latter provides certain immunities, energy resistances and the ability to summon allies. Skipping over class and template grafts, we get to the assignment of special abilities and promptly crash into a brick wall. The Pathfinder babau has a number of abilities not covered under its grafts, including spell resistance, damage reduction, spell-like abilities, natural weapons, multiattack, feats and its unique protective slime ability. However, a CR 6 monster only gets two special abilities according to the array. I believe there is some sort of error here, since there are plenty of monsters in the Alien Archive with far more special abilities than are indicated in the arrays. So, I decide to drop the multiattack, since the babau prefers to use melee weapons anyway. I also drop the feats and spell-like abilities (except summon which is granted by the demon graft). I keep the SR, DR and protective slime ability from the Pathfinder stat block.

Demon, Babau  CR 6
XP 2,400
CE Medium outsider (demon)
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60ft.; Perception +13

Defense  HP 80
EAC 18; KAC 19
Fort +11, Ref +5, Will +5
DR 10/cold iron or good; Immunities electricity, poison;
Resistances fire 10, cold 10, acid 10; SR 17

Offense
Speed 30 ft.
Melee spear +15 (1d6+11 P) or claw +15 (1d4+11 S)
Spell-Like Abilities [CL 6th]
1/day - summon allies (1 babau 35%)

Statistics
Str +5; Dex +1; Con +3; Int +0; Wis +0; Cha +2
Skills Stealth +18, Acrobatics +18, Athletics +18,
Sense Motive +13
Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Draconic, telepathy (100 ft.)
Gear cold iron tactical spear with durable fusion

Ecology
Environment any
Organization solitary, pair or gang (3-6)

Special Abilities
Protective Slime (Su) A layer of protective slime protects a babau's skin. Any creature that strikes a babau with a natural attack or unarmed strike takes 1d8 points of acid damage from this slime if it fails a DC 18 Reflex save.

Overall, it seems to be a reasonable build. The protective slime ability loses some of its effectiveness because the hardness of advanced materials used in Starfinder is too high to be damaged by the acid. Also, the loss of many of the spell-like abilities did nerf the creature a bit. I might be inclined to give some of those back. One weird observation I did make, the choice of how to assign the ability modifiers seems to have very little effect. The save and skill modifiers are set independent of the ability modifiers that apply to them. Only the damage bonus to melee attacks and initiative modifier change depending on ability modifier assignment. It certainly speeds things up, but is somewhat counterintuitive and makes the assignment of ability scores rather pointless.

-Rognar-

Starfinder: Earth and the Cthulhu Mythos

As we prepare to start our first Starfinder campaign in a few weeks, I have been thinking more about the Starfinder setting. There are a lot of pretty cool things in there and I will talk about a few of my favourites in later posts. Right now though, I am going to discuss the planet Earth and its place in the Starfinder universe. We know that Earth exists in the Pathfinder universe. There are at least two APs I am aware of in which characters either travel to Earth directly or encounter evidence that ties to Earth. The version of Earth described in these examples is not necessarily our own, but it is certainly a reasonable facsimile with historical figures, places and events in common with our world.

This relationship becomes more interesting when you consider that the Cthulhu Mythos is very real thing in the Pathfinder/Starfinder universe. This implies that the authors of the Mythos; H.P. Lovecraft mainly, but also August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Ramsay Campbell and others, exist in the universe and that, rather than being fiction writers, they are actually seers and oracles. Their writings are not merely pulp stories, but are, in actuality, prophecies. So consider for a moment, the number of Great Old Ones who slumber in the dark recesses of our world. Cthulhu sleeps in the city of R’lyeh, somewhere in the depths of the South Pacific. Tsathoggua languishes deep under the American plains in the lightless cavern of N’kai. Ithaqua stalks the Arctic wastes and Gla’aki watches from a murky lake in the Severn valley of Gloucestershire. Still others, Atlach-Nacha, Zoth-Ommog, Y’golonac, Einhort, Cthylla and Ghatanothoa may be found hidden away in forgotten tombs underground or deep below the waves. Most of the Great Old Ones on Earth came from elsewhere and many are imprisoned by the Elder Gods, awaiting a time when “the stars are right” to escape their incarceration.


Now, consider that the period of “present-day” Golarion corresponds to the time when WWI is being fought on Pathfinder Earth. I won’t spoil where this information comes from, but suffice to say, a little research into Pathfinder APs will reveal it easily enough. This would also be the time that Lovecraft began his writing career. At this point, we come to “the Gap”, the millennia-long period of lost memory that even the gods won’t discuss. All we know is that some time during that period, Golarion disappeared, to be replaced by Absalom station. We do not know when this period began in the time reckoning of old Golarion, but it is intriguing to consider that a connection between the Gap and some cataclysmic event leading to the escape of so many Great Old Ones, as foreseen by the great oracle of Providence. It should be noted that Nyarlathotep is now a core deity in the Starfinder universe. What role did the Crawling Chaos play in the events obscured by the Gap to earn such a prominent place in the new order?

-Rognar-

Starfinder - Character creation 2

Since Kolrez is a mystic, alignment and deity are defining aspects of his character, so some thought has to go into making these decisions. I wanted Kolrez to be most at peace among the stars, so Ibra, god of the cosmos, seemed the best choice. Ibra is true neutral, so I decided Kolrez would be also.

At this point, I should say a bit about gods in Starfinder. Some of the gods are familiar from Pathfinder. These include Iomedae, Sarenrae, Desna, Abadar, Phaerasma, Zon-Kuthon and Urgathoa. Other Golarion gods such as Asmodeus, Calistria and Lamashtu still exist, though in different and less powerful forms. In addition, there are many new gods and goddesses, some adopting portfolios previously held by other gods of Golarion, while others are completely new such as Triune, god of artificial intelligence and Oras, god of evolution and natural selection. Although the Dark Tapestry, which played such a large, though indirect role in Iron Gods, is not mentioned by name, the Outer God, Nyarlathotep is now a core deity with responsibility for conspiracies and forbidden magic.

At 1st level, mystics select a connection, which is very similar to an oracle's mystery class feature from Pathfinder. A mystic selects only one connection which provides insight bonuses to certain skills, bonus spells and class abilities with increasing levels. For Kolrez, I choose the Star Shaman connection which gives him Piloting and Perception as associated skills as well as the Walk the Void (Su) ability, allowing him to survive exposure to vacuum without harm. As a 1st level mystic, Kolrez also gains Healing Touch (Su), allowing him to heal an ally up to 5 hp/level, once per day. Finally, like in Pathfinder, the character starts with a feat at 1st level. I choose Great Fortitude.

All that remains is to choose spells, skills and equipment and Kolrez is ready to go. Both the mystic and the technomancer have a 0-6 level spell table. Kolrez starts out knowing 4 0-level and 2 1-level spells. He also gains an additional one from his connection. He selects Mystic Cure and Lesser Remove Condition as his 1st level spells and gains Shooting Stars (Magic Missile for mystics) as his connection spell. This makes him a formidable healer with a bit of offensive magic thrown in as well. For skills, Kolrez takes Piloting, Perception, Sense Motive, Mysticism and Diplomacy. The skill list in Starfinder has a lot of overlap with Pathfinder, although there has been a fair bit of streamlining. For example, the Mysticism skill now incorporates both the Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana) skills as well as any Craft skill needed to make magic items.

-Rognar-

Starfinder - Character creation 1

The much-awaited Starfinder Core Rulebook is finally available at your FLGS and I have my copy. This will be my first in a series of posts on the new game. I will be looking first at character creation. The first step in this process is to conceptualize your character and select your race, theme and class. Pathfinder players will certainly be familiar with race and class, but theme is something new.

Starting with races, there are humans, androids, two subspecies of lashuntas, kasathans, ysoki, vesh and shirrens. Anyone who has played the Iron Gods AP will have some familiarity with androids, kasathans and lashuntas, although the lashuntas have been altered somewhat. The ysoki are simply space-faring ratfolk. The vesh and the shirrens are your obligatory reptilian and insectoid races respectively. The other Pathfinder races such as elves, dwarves and halflings are not core races, but it has been hinted at that they will be introduced later*.

Classes are mostly self-explanatory. They are envoy, mechanic, mystic, operative, soldier, technomancer and solarian. The envoy is the party "face". The mystic and technomancer are the cleric and wizard respectively. The operative is the rogue, while the solarian is a sort of space monk, like a Starfinder jedi.

Themes are aspects of your character that reflect background and/or motivations. The options available in the core rules are ace pilot, bounty hunter, icon, mercenary, outlaw, priest, scholar, spacefarer, xenoseeker and themeless. Somewhat counterintuitively, there are no restrictions regarding combinations of themes and classes, so it is possible to have a priest mechanic or a mercenary mystic. Clearly some combinations will require exotic backstories. The purpose of themes is to provide a starting ability score bonus to one stat and a few minor boons to the character as he gains levels.

I decided to try out the character creation procedure by making a kasathan spacefarer mystic named Kolrez. After making those preliminary decisions, it is time to get to the number-crunching. The point buy system is a bit different in Starfinder as compared to Pathfinder. You start with straight 10s, then adjust your ability scores based on race and theme modifiers. Kolrez gets +2 STR and WIS and -2 INT for being a kasathan and +1 CON for being a spacefarer. So his starting ability scores are: STR 12, DEX 10, CON 11, INT 8, WIS 12, CHA 10. You have an additional 10 points to spend on a 1-for-1 basis, although no ability score can exceed 18 at this point. Note that ability modifiers are the same in Starfinder as Pathfinder. With that in mind, I distribute my additional points to improve CON, INT, WIS and CHA as follows: STR 12, DEX 10, CON 12, INT 9, WIS 18, CHA 12. You cannot transfer points from one ability to another.

Next, we look at hit points (hp), stamina points (sp) and resolve points (rp). Stamina points represent general toughness. They are lost first and relatively easy to recover. Hit points indicate actual capacity to endure injury. Resolve points represent willpower and are used to activate certain class features and regain resources such as stamina. None of these points are rolled, all are fixed based on your character race, class, ability modifiers and level. At 1st level, Kolrez gets 4 racial hit points and 6 class hit points for a total of 10 hps to start. At 2nd level and each level beyond, he only gets the 6 class hps. Stamina points are based on class and CON modifier. Kolrez starts out with 6 class sp and 1 CON sp for a total of 7 sp. Finally, resolve points are equal to half your level (minimum of 1) + modifier of your key ability score. Since Kolrez has WIS 18, he gets 4 + 1 rps.

In my next post, I will discuss class features of the mystic, gods and alignments.

-Rognar-

*Edit: There is a section in the back of the core book which provides some information on Pathfinder races for those wishing to use them to make Starfinder characters.