Pathfinder Races in Starfinder

Friday, August 4, 2017

With less than two weeks to go until the launch of Starfinder, the excitement around here has reached a fever pitch! In the past few months, we've shown off all the new races and classes, introduced you to iconic characters and new rules systems, and more. Yet as excited as we are for all the new stuff, we're just as excited to show you some very familiar things...

While Starfinder has its own "core races"—humans, lashuntas, kasathas, androids, vesk, ysoki, and shirrens—that doesn't mean we've forgotten about Pathfinder's core races. After all, what would Golarion's solar system be without elves and dwarves, or gnomes and halfings? That's why the Starfinder Core Rulebook has the Pathfinder Legacy chapter, in which it presents—among other useful information—complete racial stats for all of Pathfinder's core races, as well as updated details describing the races and how they fit into the vast ecosystem of the Pact Worlds. So while we aren't going to spoil the surprise and list all of their racial abilities or cultural details, here's a taste of what Pathfinder's core races look like in Starfinder!

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

Dwarves

+2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Cha
Hit Points: 6

Dwarves in Starfinder still feel a keen connection to lost Golarion. They're most commonly found on Absalom Station or cruising through the void on their city-sized Star Citadel ships. Many of them are heavily involved in asteroid mining in the Diaspora, while others explore far from the Pact Worlds in what they believe is a second stage of the legendary Quest for Sky that led them to Golarion's surface. Of course, these traditional spiritual beliefs have been dealt something of a blow by the fact that Torag went missing during the Gap...

Elves

+2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Con
Hit Points: 4

Elves in Starfinder were hit hardest of all the Pathfinder legacy races by the Gap, as they proved slower to adapt and recover than shorter-lived races. After all, many modern elves were already alive when the Gap ended, and thus still have large holes in their memories where those early centuries have been burned away. What's more, their leaders have long since concluded that their race was betrayed during that mysterious period—they just don't know by whom. All of this has led many elves to retreat to Sovyrian on Castrovel, or restrict themselves to all-elven settlements or crews, their government diplomats even going so far as to wear masks when forced to interact with other races. Pushing back hard against this isolationism is the steadily growing cohort of elves called Forlorn, who choose to live among other races. Yet regardless of cultural group, whether at home or abroad, many elves gravitate toward magic, seeing in its practice a connection to their ancestors.

Gnomes

+2 Con, -2 Str, +2 Cha (feychild) or +2 Int (bleachling)
Hit Points: 4

In the age of Starfinder, gnomes have split into two distinct groups. Thos called the feychildren remain much the same as they were in Pathfinder: brightly colored, whimsical, otherworldly, and occasionally bizarre in the pursuit of their passions. Bleachlings, on the other hand, are a subrace of gnomes who split away from others when—through freak mutation or deliberate genetic editing—they somehow survived the Bleaching that still plagues feychildren. As a result of this racial split, its details shrouded by the Gap, bleachlings are more even-tempered than their mischievous cousins, highly intellectual and able to sate their search for novelty with purely intellectual pursuits. While researchers have yet to isolate exactly what protects bleachlings from their kindred's dangerous racial disease, this immunity breeds true, and so their minority is slowly growing in gnome communities.

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

Half-Elves

+2 to any one ability score
Hit Points: 4

Half-elves place in the setting has changed little over the millennia. Thanks to Sovyrian's Blood Right policy, they're welcome to live among their full-blooded kin, and account for much of that nation's trade with other races, yet plenty of half-elves feel stifled by their traditionalist relations. Many can be found operating as traders or homesteaders across the galaxy, with recent half-elven settlements including new townships springing up just outside of Verces's terminator region, or on the tropical colony world of Shanavan.

Half-Orcs

+2 to any one ability score
Hit Points: 6

While full-blood orcs are rare in the Pact Worlds, found primarily on drow-controlled Apostae, half-orcs are significantly more common, nearly always the children of other half-orcs. Sadly, not even the Gap could completely stamp out traditional prejudice against their people, and other races still often regard half-orcs as brutes, best suited to criminal or mercenary work. How the half-orcs respond to this varies. Some "steelskins" reject conventional society and seek to set themselves even farther apart from the mainstream with extensive cybernetics or other body modifications. Others decide to push beyond the established boundaries of civilization and found new colonies. While some of these colonists are content to settle permanently, others are professional pioneers, forming companies that land on new worlds as first-wave colonists, enduring the most dangerous and difficult period of a colony's founding, then selling off their land rights to "softer" colonists and starting fresh on a new world. In this fashion, some of the roughest and toughest half-orcs are also some of the wealthiest individuals in the Pact Worlds, acting as venture capitalists and patrons investing in other half-orc adventurers.

Halflings

+2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Str
Hit Points: 2

Like gnomes, halflings have gotten faster in Starfinder—no more speed penalty just for being short! Add in their natural luck, keen senses, and stealth, and they make superb operatives, though many are also charming envoys or pilots in their wandering caravan fleets. While the public image of halflings as athletes and celebrity daredevils may not perfectly describe the average homebody halfling, their cheerful, even tempers in the face of danger can turn even a workaday halfling into a hero when circumstances demand it. Of all the common races, halflings are perhaps the least likely to use obvious cybernetic or biotech augmentations, generally feeling that halfling physiology is pretty much perfect as it is.

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

A Game of Boons

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Alright, it's time to start kicking these Starfinder Society blogs into hyperspee... errrrr, speeds you'd expect while travelling through the Drift! Today's blog is going to touch on two things that people frequently ask about: boons and new races in the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

Illustration by Maichol Quinto

Boons and Boon Slots

As previously announced in interviews and at our PaizoCon panel, Starfinder Society is changing up the Roleplaying Guild's handling of boons. Boons are non-standard rewards granted on the Chronicle sheets you get for completing Starfinder Society scenarios and sanctioned content. For all you Pathfinder Society veterans out there, the current boon system involves finding special boons on a Chronicle sheet and mentally keeping track of them throughout the course of your character's career. The existing system allows for a character to accrue a lot of boons over the course of her career, but it also requires a lot of tracking on the player's end. Did you remember that your second Chronicle sheet gave you a +1 circumstance bonus to negotiating with gnolls from western Katapesh? (John likes using that one as an example, a lot. He also wants me to remind Pathfinder Society players, that six seasons later, that boon is still relevant!)

To ease player record keeping burdens, as well as to give the development team some flexibility on ensuring that boons remain relevant throughout the campaign, Starfinder Society introduces boon slots. Each boon slot represents an available space in which a player can activate one of their earned boons; if you've slotted a boon, it's active for that adventure, and if you didn't slot one of your boons, it's dormant. Every Starfinder Society character has six boon slots, and each of which corresponds to a different type of boon. Most boons now include a corresponding boon type, so you can slot a Social boon into your Social boon slot, but not into your Faction boon slot. This means that with the exception of the occasional untyped boon, you'll only be tracking up to six boons during a session—not sorting through stacks of paper in the middle of the game.

In previous announcements, we've talked a little about boon slots, but today we're going to go over each of the six types of boons.

Ally: Ally boons are boons that represent an ally actively assisting the PC. This could be a temporary hireling versed in a specific skill, an ammunition porter, or even a less physical presence (such as the digital imp we discussed in our previous blog). Ally boons generally represent an additional 'body' on the team, or the presence of a creature that affects combat or general skill checks.

Faction: Every faction offers a boon that allows characters to champion that faction. Characters slotting these boons earn Reputation with the associated faction, effectively allowing the character to swap out what factions she works for on a scenario-by-scenario basis. The entry-level boon for a faction's referred to as the champion boon, and that can improve as your character gains more and more Reputation.

Promotional: Promotional boons are unique in that they often represent out-of-game acquisitions that translate to in-game benefits—Pathfinder Society veterans might think of this as the "shirt reroll" slot. One example of a promotional boon, would be a boon designed around bringing a Starfinder Player Character Folio to use at the table. If you're concerned about only being limited to benefiting from one promotional item during an adventure... well, let's just say there's a faction that has your back!

Social: These boons encompass agreements or alliances with in-game organizations or NPCs. For John's sake, this is where you'll slot that lovely ‘gnolls from western Katapesh' boon! A common example of a social boon would be forging a relationship with an organization, and in future scenarios that organization returns and reacts differently based on whether you've slotted this boon.

Starship: We sure have starships and starship combat in the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild. The starship boon slot allows characters to customize some of the standard hulls available to field agents. Expect a future blog post to touch on exactly how starships work in Starfinder Society.

When does a player decide to lock-in his boons for an adventure? Well, Starfinder Society scenarios, much like their Pathfinder Society counterparts, include mission briefings. Each briefing now ends with an instruction for the GM to inform the players to select their boons. This gives players some time in-game to select what boons they think will be most appropriate to the mission at hand, based on the information they received from the briefing. If you're wondering about missing out on slotting story relevant boons, don't worry! The boon slotting section of the adventure will also give GM a list of especially relevant boons from previous Chronicle Sheets, letting the GM know to inform the players that these boons could have a significant effect on the game if they choose to slot them.

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

New Races

The most frequent question I've heard about Starfinder Society—not counting head-in-jar joke questions—is how we'll be handling the multitude of available races. With the recent release of Starfinder First Contact and the announcement of the Starfinder Alien Archive, the Starfinder team is certainly delivering on its promise of adding a wide variety of playable races beyond the core seven races. So how will Starfinder Society play handle the ever-expanding list of alien species?

Oh... hmmmm... did I miss one of the boon slots? OH! Well, isn't that fortuitous timing! Let me just take a quick detour from this talk on alien species to fix that omission.

Personal: Personal boons represent a wide variety of special boons available in the campaign. Unique races, typically those found beyond the core races of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, commonly occupy this slot. The personal slot often requires associated boons (such as new race options) be permanently slotted, so that the slotted boon does not change on a scenario-by-scenario basis. However, this also means that characters with this boon slot available can use it for other purposes...

Well, that certainly explains a bit, doesn't it? Yes, non-standard species will be made available by permanently slotting that race's boon in the Personal boon slot. This doesn't mean that every new race will be immediately available for use. We're rolling out new races in a controlled fashion, such as through convention or special event boons, as well as through some unique new distribution plans that we're adding into the campaign. Not quite ready to go into all the details on how these boons will be released, but stay tuned for more info!

Ok, fine, I'll answer one more common question—only because you're all great fans. How will Starfinder Society handle the legacy races from Pathfinder? Can you play a halfling starship pilot, or a half-orc solarian? How does one get access to play legacy races? Well, here's a hint: Pathfinder Society has this cool thing called a "Regional Support Program" and Starfinder Society will have one too!

Alrighty, enough spilling of beans from my end. I need to get back to work before John and Tonya find out I've spent all this time on an extra-long blog post!

Thurston Hillman
Starfinder Society Developer

New Paths Among the Stars: Compatibility Between Starfinder and Pathfinder

Monday, June 5, 2017

Starfinder is a complete roleplaying game, and can be played on its own without ever referring to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. It is based on Pathfinder, of course, and shares many similarities with its older cousin, but in many cases Starfinder handles specific issues differently than Pathfinder. We've mentioned several times that Pathfinder is easily integrated into Starfinder, and that there's some level of compatibility between the two games, but we haven't been very specific on exactly how easy it'll be to add Starfinder cybernetics to Pathfinder fire giants, or port Pathfinder character classes and races into a Starfinder campaign. Those questions are likely to take more than one blog post to cover, but we wanted to at least begin going into greater detail about how we envision these two games working together.

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

Starfinder should feel very familiar to experienced Pathfinder players, and much of the overall play experience is similar. Despite changes like iterative attacks for high base attack bonuses being replaced by universal full attacks allowing two attacks both at -4, or breaking hit points into two pools of Stamina Points and Hit Points, most of the general rules of the game are close enough to make it easy to see how to convert a specific option from one class to another. The most common specific tweaks to combat are covered in the Starfinder Core Rulebook, specifically Chapter 13: Pathfinder Legacy. This chapter presents the information a GM needs to convert between the two games when dealing with questions of bonus types, actions in combat, CMB/CMD vs EAC/KAC, damage, ability scores, and so on. A GM wishing to take griefgalls from Bestiary 5 and use them for an invasion of Absalom Station should have no trouble adapting the monster to Starfinder use. In fact, given that both Starfinder and Pathfinder inhabit the same fictional universe, we specifically designed the game so that you could use monsters from one in the other on the fly, with little conversion—after all, a keketar protean is a keketar protean regardless of system, and this way we can focus on creating cool new creatures for Starfinder rather than just converting all the old standards.

For things like magic items, spells, feats, equipment, and other player-facing options, conversion can be more difficult and have more hidden pitfalls. One of the hardest questions a GM will need to answer is if something from one game system even should be introduced to the other. For instance, Starfinder and Pathfinder make different assumptions about when in a campaign various options first appear, and when they become commonplace. This means that introducing a new options from one of the games into a campaign using the other set of rules can have consequences well beyond how well the two sets of game rules interact mechanically.

For example, every first-level Starfinder character is likely to have armor that protects against extremes of temperature and pressure, and provides breathable air, thus protecting them from gaseous poisons or even complete vacuum for up to 24 hours. In Pathfinder, that level of protection isn't available until much higher level, and many characters never acquire it. While the rules for extreme environments are similar enough that a character from either game can make the appropriate saving throws (and understand how to apply the effects of failing those saves), a Pathfinder game that introduces items and abilities designed for Starfinder is going to bypass or neutralize a lot of common Pathfinder threats and encounters. Similar issues arise when discussing movement, flight, senses, ranged attacks, access to energy damage, and even the ease with which non-spellcasters can access magic abilities.

Those differences in assumptions alter how items and options from one game will impact campaigns using the other game's base rules. Even with the differences between Armor Class rules in the two games, it's not hard to figure out how a suit of ceremonial vesk overplate with a jet pack and infrared sensors would operate in Pathfinder—but the impact it would have on a typical Pathfinder game is much higher than the low level of those options in Starfinder would suggest.

Similarly, the two games also use different methods to produce the numerical values characters and monsters use to interact with one another. This often includes math that is (quite intentionally) behind the scenes, and thus not particularly obvious. For example, Starfinder does its best to not require characters to constantly get higher and higher enhancement bonuses to attack rolls, damage, and armor class, or resistance bonuses to saving throws. As a result, there's no option to create a +1 plasma cannon in Starfinder, since the additional math isn't needed. Thus adding magic to Starfinder gear is always about gaining some cool new option or ability rather than just numbers. It would be easy to determine how to port such rules over from Pathfinder, but doing so would create imbalances, since the new game is designed to function without most pure bonus-boosters.

For races, these issues are much less likely to cause significant issues. We already provide full Starfinder write-ups for dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, half-elves and half-orcs in the Pathfinder Legacy chapter of Starfinder. Those races still exist in the Pact Worlds, they just aren't as common as they were in Golarion-focused games using Pathfinder. Converting other Pathfinder races should be straightforward, and unlikely to cause major problems. In fact, some races that don't fit well in most Pathfinder games may be less disruptive to a Starfinder campaign!

Pathfinder classes are going to be the element it is most difficult to move to a Starfinder campaign, and require some work on the part of a GM, both in understanding how Starfinder handles various kinds of abilities and in looking for places where problems might crop up from unbalanced bonuses that Starfinder doesn't need or abilities that lack the support in one game system or the other. Of course, we tried to make sure common character tropes could be created in Starfinder, even if they're built differently than their Pathfinder equivalents. While there's no straight-up paladin analogue in Starfinder, a soldier with the priest theme, phrenic adept archetype, and various psychic power feats can certainly take the role of a religious champion with access to both martial skills and magic powers.

If nothing but the original Pathfinder classes will satisfy, however, the Pathfinder Legacy section gives what guidance we could manage for GMs wanting to port Pathfinder classes directly over. Questions of key ability scores, stamina points, skill points, weapon and armor proficiency and specialization, and other common core game mechanics are easy, and we mostly spell them out. When it comes to tougher questions like class features, eidolons, animal companions, familiars, class spell lists and 7th-9th level spells, bardic performance, and even flurry of blows we give advice, but it'll be up to each GM to decide exactly how to implement that advice.

In many ways, all of Pathfinder is like a series of "Starfinder Unchained" books—optional rules and subsystems a GM can adapt or not as appropriate for their game and their own desire to tinker. Our first priority was always to make Starfinder the best game it could be on its own, with as many robust options as we could make fit without overcomplicating it. Yet its underlying game engine remains close enough to Pathfinder that anyone who wants to adopt or convert materials from those sources to Starfinder should be able to do so with a minimum of effort.

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

Familiar Places, New Adventures

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

Many up-and-coming Pathfinders start their careers in one of the evergreen adventures designed for 1st-level characters. Our four current evergreen scenarios are First Steps—Part 1, The Confirmation, The Wounded Wisp, and The Consortium Compact. One of the goals of these evergreen scenarios is to include options for both players and GMs that keep the scenario fresh with multiple playthroughs. To that end, we just released an update to The Wounded Wisp, revising a particular handout to be relevant to upcoming events in Season 8. The new handout appears at the end of the scenario's handout section, along with the versions of that handout from Seasons 6 and 7.

Along with the update to The Wounded Wisp, we've also released a low-spoiler summary of Season 7's storyline. This summary is now included in the Story So Far document, which summarizes the major plot threads of each season since broad overarching plots started in Season 2.

Striking the right balance with scenario replay is a frequent topic of discussion, both on our forums and in person. At Gen Con 2014 and 2015, we distributed a boon called Expanded Narrative that allowed GMs to earn opportunities to run or play adventures a second time for credit. If you went to Gen Con this year, you may have noticed that Expanded Narrative was nowhere to be found. We did not include it in the rotation because we've decided to open this boon up to all Society GMs.

Download the Expanded Narrative Boon — (131kb zip/PDF)

Linda Zayas-Palmer
Developer

The Monster Within

Thursday, July 7, 2016

In just a few weeks, Pathfinder RPG Horror Adventures will be launching at Gen Con 2016 and landing on store shelves! And while the GM is the one who sets a lot of the atmosphere in a horror game, each player and character contributes to the ambience—what better way to do that than to partake in horror-themed character options? In this blog, I'll give you all a preview of the character options within this book.

To start, let's look at one of the most mysterious and anticipated sections: the corruptions! Corruptions grant your character new powers, but they also stain your character with drawbacks and risk your character losing control to the darkness within. Each corruption comes with a catalyst, which describes how you might acquire, progress, and remove the main source of corruption, as well as a number of manifestations that each grant you a gift and an associated stain. There's also variants for useful corruptions, where you can ignore the stains, and vile corruptions, where you have no control over the manifestations but can ignore the gifts to help you fight off the corruption's influence. The 11 corruptions are as follows: Accursed grants you powers of curses and revenge like a hag or a fey. Deep one grants you aquatic abilities and other benefits associated with deep ones. Ghoul grants claws, stench, paralysis, and other powers related to ghouls and ghasts. Hellbound grants diabolical abilities like horns and the ability to summon devils. Hive is related to a new subtype of aberration created by a depraved annunaki; while normally hive larvae gestate in your body for sustenance and then kill you, a hive corrupted character has survived a rare metabolic symbiosis, gaining hive-related powers instead like a hive mind or acid blood. Lich grants you powers related to a failed attempt at lichdom, including necromantic mastery and a corpselike countenance. Lycanthropy grants you the ability to shift form into an animal or hybrid as well as other lycanthropic powers. Possessed grants you benefits from a second mind or soul within your body, such as letting your possessing spirit give you another shot against Will saves. Promethean comes about when you replace your body parts with construct parts, and it grants various construct-related abilities, particularly resistances and immunities. Shadowbound fills you with darkness and empties your life of joy, granting darkness and fear abilities. Finally, vampirism grants vampire abilities like fangs and summoning a rat swarm.

Illustration by Kiki Moch Rizky

Unlike many other books, there's actually a brief section on new race rules with some cool variant abilities that work well in a horror campaign. One fun example is the halfling ability creepy doll, which lets you use freeze like a gargoyle in order to appear to be a creepy-looking doll instead of a creature, and lets you Intimidate larger humanoids without a penalty due to your size.

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

There's plenty of horrific archetypes and class options as well! For instance, the blood alchemist uses sentient lives to fuel her alchemy and can create alchemical circles like an occultist in order to apply formulas to an area instead of himself. The barbarian gains new rage powers including cult totem and daemon totem. The cleric elder mythos cultist archetype is a cleric who uses Charisma instead of Wisdom and is rather insane. Devolutionist druids devolve animals and humanoids into feral ancestors (including their animal companion, a devolved humanoid). Hexenhammer inquisitors mix blasphemous dark arts with their faith and must balance these transgressions with penance. Cult hunter investigators seek out horrific cults like your typical Lovecraft investigators. Kineticists gain the elemental whispers wild talents, which allow them to make friends with a voice in their head and even manifest it. Mediums can contact vile legendary spirits like the heretic, which replaces the hierophant and helps you infiltrate a good religion and corrupt it to evil. Hate-monger mesmerists can sow xenophobic hatred while applying touch treatment without the touched creature realizing it. Talisman crafter occultists can create talismans holding their spells that others can activate. Soul sentinel paladins can help with confusion and corruptions with their mercies and become immune to hexes and curses. Witch killer slayers are experts in hunting and killing arcane spellcasters, including an ability called "burn the witch". Necrologists are evil spiritualists that house vile undead within them, rather than phantoms. Hangman vigilantes are whip and noose experts. Tatterdemalion witches command fabric and thread and can stitch a creature's eyes or mouth shut. Finally, hallowed necromancer wizards use their necromancy to destroy undead, rather than create them.

Horror Adventures also has a variety of fun and horrifying feats, as well as feats to fight against the encroaching darkness. For instance, Absorb Spirit lets you temporarily house a rejuvenating spirit within you to prevent it from returning for a time, and Disconcerting Knowledge lets you demoralize a foe with Knowledge checks to identify its weaknesses. There's also plenty of monster feats (including one where a shapeshifter's form change involves ripping out of its old body in a gruesome fashion), a small assortment of story feats (like Twisted Love, where a horrible creature is in love with you), and even four new styles: Brute Style lets you victimize prone opponents like a rampaging kaiju, Deadhand Style allows you to manipulate fear and eventually inflict negative levels with your unarmed strikes for ki, Kyton Style lets you use a spiked chain as a monk weapon and eventually as a shield as well as a weapon, and Maddening Style lets you strike at a foe's sanity and eventually obliterate your fallen foes as disintegrate.

There are dark spells from foul tomes as well as righteous incantations to defeat them. The death clutch spell causes someone's heart to leap out into your hand while damnation deals damage to nearby creatures in proportion to their most powerful evil spell or spell effect. Vile dog transformation transforms dogs into horrific servitors, and they dissolve into a stinking pile of gore and bones at the end of the spell (if the dog trusts you, it takes a -4 penalty on its save to avoid being transformed), while holy javelin impales an evil creature, dealing ongoing damage and weakening them.

When it comes to magic items, there are a variety of horrific items, like a withered heart you can squeeze to damage your foes, an altar that lets you animated dead without expending onyx, gloves that give you mouths on your hands, ad a mantle of darkness that creates deeper darkness when you take a total defense. There's also holy items like a holy symbol that dazzles your foes when you channel or use it as a divine focus, a holy symbol that lets you calm down creatures by healing them with your channel, and a monocle that helps protect you from reading something that harm you (or your sanity!). There's also cursed items like the needful doll that demands attention lest it give you nightmares, as well as artifacts like the dark grimoire, which lets anyone cast any spell by studying it for 1 hour per spell level (you even ignore material component costs by sacrificing humanoid creatures—how convenient!).

And that's just a sampling of the goodies in store for you. Stay tuned next week when we'll be focusing on some of the cool GM tools and advice in the book!

Mark Seifter
Designer