RSS Facebook Twitter Email
Community / Paizo Blog

Starfinder Society 2.0: Character Creation

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Welcome back to our Starfinder Society rollout! Last week, Jessica talked to you about Starfinder Society scenarios. Of course, in order to play these adventures, you’ll need a character or three, so today let’s dive into character creation!

Starfinder Society Second Edition Logo


Character Creation Basics

In general, you’ll follow the rules as outlined in the Starfinder Player Core to create a player character (PC) in Starfinder Society. For a preview of these rules, check out the Pathfinder Player Core. The following steps will augment these character creation rules:

  • When creating your character concept, remember that you are a member of the Starfinder Society. They must be able to work with any other Starfinder and abide by the Society’s motto: “Explore, Report, Cooperate.”
  • Characters may use any ancestry, heritage, background, and class from the Starfinder Galaxy Guide or Starfinder Player Core.
    • Players who participated in the Starfinder Playtest will have access to exclusive backgrounds based on these adventures. Additionally, all Starfinders will have access to campaign-specific backgrounds in addition to those found in hardcover material.
  • Characters must be adults for their ancestry, and cannot be sanctified to unholy.

Starting at Higher Levels

In Starfinder Society (second edition), characters may be created at 1st-, 3rd-, 5th- or 7th-level. While we encourage all players to start their first character at 1st-level to help them learn the system, we believe this flexibility will allow for greater ease of scheduling across the board. Characters who participate in an entire plotline from the very start will also find that later scenarios will reward having participated in earlier adventures.

Pregenerated characters will be available at 1st-, 3rd-, and 5th-level, though we want to caution you all that 5th-level content won’t appear until close to the end of our first season of play.

When creating a character at a higher level, you may select starting equipment using either the lump sum or permanent items as found in the Character Wealth table (Starfinder GM Core 59).


Level Cap

We do not intend to publish adventures for characters above 10th level. As scenarios get into higher level ranges, we see diminishing table counts. These high-level adventures are also significantly more involved to design and develop. We’re announcing this cap now to set expectations and to ensure you’re all aware of our plans from the start. We’d hate for you to create a character whose build comes online late in the game, only to find out that you won’t have a chance to play them in the campaign.

Those who are interested in play above 10th-level should look to our other published Adventure Paths and Adventure content. Organized Play is a great way to find other players you enjoy gaming with for these additional experiences!


Illustration by Renan Maurilio.
artist Renan Maurilio: An insectile, shirren Starfinder agent named Zizenzi scratches the back of their head while examining their surroundings and referencing a holographic surveying device. They wear a knit cap, practical clothes, and an overflowing backpack.

Character Options

Our plan, with a handful of exceptions, is to make as much of our published Starfinder content available to all Starfinder characters without purchasing boons or completing certain adventures. This means that at launch all ancestries, classes, and other options in the StarfinderGalaxy Guide, StarfinderPlayer Core, and StarfinderGM Core will be available for all characters, and future products will see similarly permissive access. Starfinder Society will not use variant rules such as Free Archetype or Automatic Bonus Progression.

Additionally, players will be permitted to use the technomancer and mechanic classes from the Tech Playtest until their release in a future hardcover book! We will have full guidelines for converting your character once we get closer, but expect that any technomancers or mechanics will be required to rebuild into the final rules once they are released.

We want you to purchase a Paizo product and be able to use that content immediately, without restriction. One of the core appeals of Starfinder is the cantina of alien options available, and we believe that’s a key component of our Organized Play program as well.

With that in mind, what might Achievement Points be used for? And what other rewards might scenarios unlock? Join us next week for more on adventure rewards and other program elements!

Follow along with our SFS2 rollout blogs:

Until next time - Explore! Report! Cooperate! And start crafting those Starfinder characters!

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Coordinator

Jessica Catalan
Starfinder Society Developer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Organized Play Starfinder Society
Search Thread

Search this Thread:

51 to 53 of 53 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Wayfinders

As with many conversations about the game, where and how you play make a big difference. I've only played SF1e and SF2e PbP. My first character is now level 6 after 3 years. The first group I played with only lost one player in 9 months. Playing with the same group made it easy to play the same character up to 5th level.

Once that group split up, I had to build a new character to fit in with low-level games. I also started playing in more than one game at the same time, so I ended up with lots of low-level characters, none of which are over 2nd level. I will also frequently make a new character depending on the team's needs or if I don't have a character that fits well with the scenario. With SF1e having so many playable species, I just like making new characters to try more species and classes.

After playing 5 8th-level pregens at the same time during Outpost VIII, I'd much rather play multiple low-level characters than high-level ones. It's much easier for me if I learn my character abilities as they level up. The lower level pregens were not hard to play, but 8th level was much harder since I was not familiar with the equipment or abilities at that level or what other PCs could do. I think the new rules letting you build your character at higher levels will help with some of that, since picking your own abilities and gear makes it easier to understand how it works.

So, for me, high-level play is more interesting if I'm not playing multiple games at the same time, and am playing with the same group of characters. For me, making lots of characters is more interesting than playing one all the way through.

But I get why people would want to keep playing a character they are attached to after it reaches some level limit. I don't care what level that is at, but I think some option to keep playing without gaining levels might help. Maybe a maxed-out character could have some special SFS rank or title, like being an SFS officer instead of an SFS agent.

Leveling up goes much faster if you are playing in live games vs PbP, but even in live games, I tend to bring several characters and then play the one that best fits the party's needs, so I level up slower there, too. There's no one right way to play the game. I don't go to conventions, but that does seem like a good time for die-hard players to play their high-level characters.
Scarab Sages 3/5 5/5 *
1 person marked this as a favorite.

In PF1, I have the following:
Wizard 5/Harrower 10 (Marie)
Paladin 16 (Venture Captain Felzeel from Eyes of the Ten)
Summoner 16/Gunslinger 1 (Rokket and Groot)
Skald 8/Evangelist 7 (Suli)
Bard 12 (aasimar - Felzeel's protege from Eyes of the Ten)
Summoner 12 (deep gnome)

All of whom got most of their levels in society play.
Loved playing them all - would still if there was content.

In PF2 my two highest level characters both died at level 10 - one irrevocably (disintegrated by a lich) the other I didn't res because I wanted the ACP for other things.

In SF1 my highest level died in similar circumstances (disintegrated).

I don't mind that they died, I don't blame the GMs or the scenario writers - without the possibility of death, danger isn't real.

My point is - high level play was the reward for slogging through the lower levels, or GMing a lot. Please don't take it away!
*
Cassi wrote:

Speaking as a GM, we've really had problems with high level play taking too much time and game stores with firm cut off times.

I also don't really like level 1-4 play, but I absolutely understand the move to cap games at level 10.

The "people can only do high level play in SFS mode" commenters... No, only if the scenario is not running over time. You hit the same time commitment problem as AP books if your GM lets you have fun with role play, or if players spend time arguing or planning.
Even if your GM is moving you around quickly, or you're replay "speedrunning", you can still run over time on some scenarios if combat blows out. And combat can blow out from bad rolls, so it may not actually be anything in your GM's control.

Also, AP books don't neccessarily take that long. 3 sessions (of 4-6 hours) is doable. Same as an SFS retirement arc, really.

Deciding before you actually experience it isn't an informed decision.

I vehemently disagree. Especially on that last point. I run APs almost exclusively. You would have to be speedrunning to get numbers like that.

Don't assume no one has ever been in an AP, we aren't ignorant and jumping at shadows. Plenty of us know how hard it is to be a part of an AP group and how restrictive that will make high level play. Thank you.
51 to 53 of 53 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Organized Play / Starfinder Society / Paizo Blog: Starfinder Society 2.0: Character Creation All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Starfinder Society