Tech Class Playtest Errata & Encounter

Greetings, Starfinders!
We’d like to thank our entire community from the bottom of our hearts for the overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception we’ve seen for the Starfinder Tech Class Playtest! The playtest is still ongoing, and you can fill out (and modify) your feedback surveys until May 30th.

We know you’re eager for new adventure content to playtest with, so we’ve cooked up a little bonus encounter for you to run for mechanics, technomancers, and their allies! Check that out at the end of this blog!

Additionally, the team has already received tremendously useful feedback, and we’ve spotted some irregularities in our code that might cause your exocortexes or spell databases to glitch. So before you take off on your next adventure, make sure your mechanic and technomancer are properly patched and updated with the newest addition to the Official Starfinder Playtest FAQ. We’ve included a summary and explanation of some of the changes below:

Illustration by Yun Huai Huang

Mechanic

• Modify Possession: Some Starfinders have expressed concern that Modify doesn’t work with grenades, thrown weapons, and exocortexes that leave your possession when used. To fix this, under "Modify" on page 4, replace the line "or leaves your possession" with "or a character other than you, your drone, or your turret attempts to use the item."
• Modify Drone: You need the Modify Drone feat in order to modify the weapons on your drone. Remove "and any weapons it wields" from the first sentence of the third paragraph under Drone on page 5.
• Deploy Mine: Using an extra action to deploy a mine should only change whether or not you can deploy it in an unoccupied square, not how far away you can deploy it. Replace the text of Deploy Mine with the following: “You deploy a mine, planting it in an unoccupied square within 30 feet. You can increase the number of actions you spend Deploying a Mine to two to instead plant the mine in an occupied square within 30 feet. When you Deploy a Mine, you select whether it will deal fire damage or piercing damage when detonated.”
• Aucturnite Ammunition: Transmutative Casing (feat 8) allows you to deal damage as if you were using aucturnite. Aucturnite ammunition and weapons gain the critical (mental) trait.
• Advanced & Elite Drone Prerequisites: Change the prerequisite of Advanced Drone (feat 14) to Refined Chassis. Change the prerequisite of Elite Drone (feat 18) to Advanced Drone.
• Convertible Chassis: Replace the text of Convertible Chassis (feat 14) with the following: “Your drone easily converts between different forms. During daily preparations, choose two different chassis for your drone. You can select a different chassis as a 1-hour activity with the concentrate and manipulate traits. Your drone gains the Mobile Reconfiguration action. Mobile Reconfiguration [two actions] Your drone changes itself from one of its chassis to another.”

Robot Companion

· Robot Companion Skills: Like animal companions, robot companions are always trained in Acrobatics and Athletics, so they don’t need those skills as bonus skill proficiencies. Replace the Agile Chassis robot companion's skill with Stealth, and the Powerful Chassis and Tank Chassis robot companion's skill with Survival.

· Graceful and Burly: Graceful robot companions use the same adjustments as a nimble animal companion. Burly robot companions use the same adjustments as a savage animal companion.

Technomancer

· Defensive Measures: Change the technomancer feature Defensive Measures to increase your proficiency rank in unarmored defense and light armor to expert.

· Electrotether: The spell electrotether is the updated version of the gravity tether spell from the Starfinder Playtest rulebook. It uses the same statistics as gravity tether, except it has the electricity trait and can target up to two creatures (even if it’s not heightened).

· Spell Transfer Protocol: The magic hack spell transfer protocol was cut during development. The advanced magic hack for the ServoShell programming language is hardlight simulacrum.

While publishing errata for a playtest is unusual, we feel some of these changes dramatically changed how these classes were played and needed to be addressed early on in the playtest process. And if you’re still looking for opportunities to playtest these classes, stay tuned to this blog and check out the games being offered at this year’s PaizoCon!

Artificial Anomalies and the Awkward Attack on Actors (Moderate 1)

Designed by Aras Yazgan

This encounter takes place on Akiton, along a trade route between the city of Arl and the settlements of Golden Bay. Talk to your players about what their characters are doing in the area. Some likely options are bandits, performers, or vigilantes patrolling the road. Playing these roles isn’t required, but might inspire some fun table banter.

The encounter takes place soon after the emergence of the Newborn (during the events of A Cosmic Birthday). A traveling theater troupe called the Aspiring Acting Aggregate has just started its yearly trip between the cities of the Ridgelands. On the way to Booster City, they were attacked by a group of robots experiencing an existential awakening due to psychic energy released by the Newborn. The robots draped themselves in fabric to appear human, then fired a turret at the troupe to scare them into abandoning their bus.

If the PCs talk to the troupe, an older woman named Madame Garvino (indignant female human stage manager) explains the situation: “Some upstarts set up a scheme just on the edge of Arlkari Plateau. The gall! They robbed us blind, not only of credits, but of our cloth, our smoke machines… Our everything was in that bus! We’re ruined.” She describes the ambush, explaining how snipers shot at them from a distance while two hooded figures ordered them to leave their bus, commenting, “The youth these days have no respect!”

When the PCs investigate the ambush site described by Madame Garvino, they find bits of cloth strewn atop the rocks, made to look like ambushers. An abandoned tour bus with AAA’s logo on the side is parked behind the rocks, emptied of valuables. As they investigate, the PCs notice electronic chittering and movement from the ruins to the northwest.

Read or paraphrase the following to set the scene:

Two twig-thin rusty robots are moving electronics. One stops abruptly and yells, “Darling! Darling! Rumbled! That is what we are!” The other responds with: “You wanna get my kiddo, you’re gonna have to go through me, bucko,” a famous line from an old audio theater show. They drop what they were holding and take aggressive stances.

Map: Use the desert map from Starfinder Flip-Mat: Alien Ruins

Creatures: Two repair-class security robots have been newly awakened into Sentient Robotic Organisms (SROs), but they lack the emotional regulation and sophistication to communicate properly. Each robot starts barely within the view of the PCs arriving from the southeast, one up north and the other to the west. The robots reposition around the rocks to lure the PCs into the turret’s range, which is placed on the slightly elevated plateau surrounded on three sides with rocks. If the PCs attack the turret, the robots desperately try to protect it. If the turret breaks, one stops attacking, drops prone, and spends all its actions yelling “Nooooo!” while the other attacks the PC who last dealt damage to the turret in a frenzy.

Adjustments: If the robots are put out of commission before they can act or lure the players to the turret, one or two more robots emerge from the ruins to keep the battle going.

Hazards: A laser turret is set up behind the wall, hidden by the rocks. It’s surrounded by random knickknacks from the AAA bus.

REPAIR-CLASS SECURITY ROBOTS (2) / CREATURE –1

[small, construct, robot, tech]

Perception +8; darkvision
Skills Acrobatics +4, Athletics +2, Computers +2
Str +1, Dex +3, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +0, Cha +0
AC 14; Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +2

HP 8; Immunities bleed, death effects, disease, doomed, drained, fatigued, healing, mental, nonlethal attacks, paralyzed, poison, sickened, unconscious; Weaknesses electricity 1

Exigency [reaction] Frequency once every 10 minutes; Trigger A creature targets the security robot with an attack; Effect The robot overclocks its processing power to attempt to avoid an attack, gaining a +2 circumstance bonus to its AC against the triggering attack.

Speed 25 feet

Melee [one-action] slam +4, Damage 1d4+1 bludgeoning

Ranged [one-action] welding torch +5 (range increment 30 feet), Damage 1d4+1 fire

Fire Suppressor [two-actions] The robot sprays a torrent of water that functions as hydraulic push (DC 16). The robot must refill its tanks after using this ability.

LASER TURRET / HAZARD 1

[complex, hazard, tech, trap]

Stealth +10 (trained)
Description A concealed turret pops up and fires a laser when intruders enter a secure area.
Disable DC 18 Computers (trained) to reprogram the turret, or DC 17 Crafting (trained) to cut power to the turret, or DC 16 Thievery (trained) to disable the turret

AC 16; Fort +10, Ref +4
Hardness 5, HP 24 (BT 12); Immunities critical hits, object immunities, precision damage

Laser Blast [reaction] Trigger A creature moves within 30 feet of the turret; Effect The trap makes a laser Strike against the creature. The trap then rolls initiative.

Routine (3 actions) The trap makes a laser Strike against up to three creatures in range, or multiple Strikes against one creature in range if it has no additional targets.

Ranged laser +9 (range increment 90 feet), Damage 1d6+3 fire

Reset The trap resets after 1 minute.

Development: A PC who succeeds at a DC 14 Computers or Crafting check realizes the robots are displaying complex behaviors that suggest they have developed emotions, higher thinking, and possibly even free will. A DC 18 Occultism or Religion check correctly determines that the robots have developed souls. The robots aren’t responsive to attempts at diplomacy during the battle, but afterward, they might be repaired and counseled rather than simply scrapped. The AAA troupe’s missing property is scattered around the rocks, set up haphazardly to resemble a crude stage.

If the PCs return the bus and equipment to Madame Garvino, she rewards them for their help (or pays handsomely to buy back her goods, if the PCs are less charitable). If the robots were repaired and counseled, she warily agrees to take them on as apprentice actors, admitting that their “performance” was quite spectacular.

Thanks for playing!

--The Starfinder Team