Just My Luck, I Get Stuck with a Race that Speaks Only in Macros

Friday, October 13, 2017

The first hardback sourcebook for Starfinder is Alien Archive, a book with scores of npcs and monsters drawn from numerous species and rules for creating brand new creatures. That obviously makes it a book GMs are going to get a lot of use out of. But there's a great deal more to it than just a bestiary of space monsters. Alien Archive has lots of additional material that's useful to players, from new player character races to new equipment options and even a whole set of summoning spell rules.

While there are stat blocks appropriate for GM use with every species, 22 of them also give the traits that allow the creation of player characters of that race. The races that receive the racial traits to allow them to be used as player characters (along with their size when it is different from Medium, and their type and subtype if any) are: barathu (aberration), contemplative (monstrous humanoid), draelik (humanoid, draelik), dragonkin (Large dragon), drow (humanoid, elf), formian (monstrous humanoid), space goblin (small humanoid, goblin), gray (small humanoid, gray), haan (Large monstrous humanoid), ikeshti (small humanoid, ikeshti), kalo (monstrous humanoid, aquatic), maraquoi (humanoid, maraquoi), nuar (monstrous humanoid), reptoid (humanoid, reptoid, shapechanger), ryphorian (humanoid, rhyphorian), sarcesian (Large humanoid, sarcesian), shobhad (Large monstrous humanoid), skittermander (Small humanoid, skittermander), urog (Large magical beast), veranthi (humanoid, veranthi), witchwyrd (monstrous humanoid), and wrikreechee (monstrous humanoid, aquatic). While some of those races are familiar to players from Pathfinder or earlier Starfinder products, others appear here for the first time.

As a sample of the new kinds of creatures available to players, here are the racial traits for wrikreechees, chitinous natives of the watery planet of Akchios.

Wrikreechee Racial Traits

Ability Adjustments: +2 Con, +2 Int, -2 Dex

Hit Points: 4

Size and Type: Wrikreechees are Medium monstrous humanoids with the aquatic subtype.

Amphibious: Wreikreechees are able to breath both water and air normally.

Cooperative (Ex): Wrikreechees spend much of their lives in close contact with one another, learning to predict their neighbors' reactions and coordinate their actions.
A wrikreechee gains a +2 bonus to skill checks for the aid another action and to attack rolls to provide harrying fire. A creature using the aid another action to assist a wrikreechee's skill check gains a +2 bonus to her check.

Darkvision: Wrikreechees have darkvision with a range of 60 feet.

Sheltering (Ex): A wrikreechee instinctively knows how to exploit sources of cover. When a wrikreechee is benefiting from partial cover, cover, or improved cover, the granted bonus to its AC and Reflex saves increases by 1. Snag (Ex): Thanks to the feathery material lining its forelimbs, a wrikreechee is adept at grabbing small prey. A wrikreechee gains a +4 bonus to attack rolls when attempting to grapple a creature smaller than itself. As a full action, a wrikreechee can make two attempts to grapple a creature with a -4 penalty to the attack rolls.

Wrikreechee Movement: A wrikreechee has a base speed of 20 feet and a swim speed of 30 feet.

Beyond the expansion of 22 new players races, many of the creature entries also include equipment that can potentially be made from a slain monster (such as the bones cestuses that can be crafted from a crest-eater), or that is an advanced item most often found in the possession of members of a specific race (such as the grays' memory expunger) or even a whole new kind of technology (such as the nuar's multifunction maze-core technology). Each piece of new equipment is tied to a new race in some specific way, allowing players to know what kinds of gear is preferred by members of various races, or to allow them to benefit from overcoming foes that can be usefully turned into equipment that may not otherwise be available.

Finally, Alien Archive includes the summon creature variable-level spell, which is available to both mystics and technomancers. This spells allows spellcasters to select four types of planar creatures that can be summoned, ranging from angels, devils, and other outsiders to elementals, shadow creatures, or even beasts from the First World (only for mystics) or robots drawn from pieces scattered through the Astral Plane (only for technomancers). Where appropriate, specific creatures from the Alien Archive are available as choices to be summoned by the spell, but a series of simple templates ensures a wide range of generic outsiders can also be called upon. If a mystic wants to focus on summoning good outsiders, it's possible to have an agathion, angel, archon, and azata at every spell level the mystic can cast summon creature.

While not every player may wish to use equipment from distant cultures, and GMs may not make all the new potential player character races available in every campaign, the ability to have new life forms and new civilizations impact player options is an important part of the information presented in Alien Archive.

Owen KC Stephens
Starfinder Design Lead