Theme abilities:
- Theme knowledge (Ace Pilot)
You are obsessed with starships and vehicles, and have committed to memory almost every related tidbit of knowledge you’ve ever come across. Reduce the DC of Culture checks to recall knowledge about starship and vehicle models and parts as well as famous hotshot pilots by 5. Piloting is a class skill for you, though if it is a class skill from the class you take at 1st level, you instead gain a +1 bonus to your Piloting checks. In addition, you gain an ability adjustment of +1 to Dexterity at character creation.
Racial abilities:
Worker Shirren: Bioengineered for labor, power, and agility, and considered expendable by their Swarm creators, worker shirrens demonstrate physical strength otherwise uncommon among their kind. Their expendability manifests in a lack of the natural insight and durability found in other shirrens. A worker shirren’s ability adjustments are +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, and −2 Charisma.
Size and Type: Shirrens are Medium humanoids with the shirren subtype.
Blindsense: Shirrens’ sensitive antennae grant them blindsense (vibration)—the ability to sense vibrations in the air—out to 30 feet. A shirren ignores the Stealth bonuses from any form of visual camouflage, invisibility, and the like when attempting a Perception check opposed by a creature’s Stealth check. Even on a successful Perception check, any foe that can’t be seen still has total concealment (50% miss chance) against a shirren, and the shirren still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment. A shirren is still flatfooted against attacks from creatures it can’t see.
Individual Obsession: Shirrens delight in individuality and experience a rush whenever they exercise their free will. This has led to many shirrens developing an obsession that stems from their personal tastes and choices. Shirrens with this trait choose one skill at 1st level. The chosen skill becomes a class skill for them, and they gain a +2 racial bonus to checks with that skill. If the chosen skill is already a class skill at 1st level, they instead gain 1 additional skill rank at each level that must be invested into the chosen skill. Shirrens who gain the chosen skill as a class skill after 1st level don’t gain these additional skill ranks. [Piloting]
Limited Telepathy: Shirrens can communicate telepathically with any creatures within 30 feet with whom they share a language. Conversing telepathically with multiple creatures simultaneously is just as difficult as listening to multiple people speak.
Class abilities:
- Aesthetic Warrior
You study fighting styles thought lost to the Gap, often recorded only in the art of ancient civilizations or inferred from the shape of relic weapons and battle gear. You focus specifically ancient motions and techniques that rely on form and mobility rather than the harshness of attacks and resilience. You gain Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. You can deal lethal damage with your unarmed strikes, and the attack doesn’t count as archaic. At 3rd level, you gain a unique Weapon Specialization with your unarmed strikes, allowing you to add 1-1/2 times your character level to your damage rolls for your unarmed strikes (instead of just adding your character level, as usual). If you can already add 1-1/2 your character level to your unarmed attack rolls (such as due to the vesk natural attack racial trait), you instead can add the block, grapple, and stun weapon special properties to your unarmed strikes. This replaces the soldier’s proficiency with heavy armor and heavy weapons.
- Primary Fighting Style: Qi Adept
Qi Strike (Su) - 1st Level
Your life-giving qi infuses your weapon attacks with your life essence, granting them eldritch power. Whenever you have at least 1 Resolve Point, your melee and ranged attacks count as magic for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction and other situations, such as attacking incorporeal creatures.
- Entropic Pool (Su) - 1st Level
You have the supernatural ability to control matter as it changes states, allowing you to arrest, accelerate, or even reverse the typical course of events. This energy takes the form of a pool of Entropy Points (EP). You can have a maximum number of EP in your entropic pool equal to your Constitution modifier.
You can gain Entropy Points only when involved in a combat encounter that includes a significant enemy (Starfinder Core Rulebook 242). When combat begins, you gain 1 Entropy Point at the beginning of your first action; at the end of combat, you lose any Entropy Points you have remaining. In addition to methods granted by vanguard aspects, you can gain Entropy Points in the followings ways.
While you have no Entropy Points, you can spend 1 Resolve Point as a move action to gain 1 EP (2 EP at 10th level).
Each time you take damage equal to or greater than twice your character level from a single attack or effect (after applying any ability to reduce that damage, such as DR, energy resistance, or the mitigate class feature), you gain 1 EP.
If you take damage from a critical hit, you gain 1 EP, in addition to any you gain from the attack’s normal damage.
If you score a critical hit on a significant enemy, you gain 1 EP.
If you take a full action to charge, you gain 1 EP.
If you take two move actions on the same turn to move your speed each time, you gain 1 EP.
As a move action, you can designate a willing adjacent ally as an entropic focus. They remain an entropic focus until the beginning of your next turn, unless they cease to be adjacent to you or you designate a new entropic focus (both of which end this effect). If your entropic focus takes damage equal to or greater than twice your character level from a single attack or effect (after applying any ability to reduce that damage, such as DR, energy resistance, or the mitigate class feature), you gain 1 EP. If you are at least 6th level, you can expend a Resolve Point to designate an adjacent, willing ally as your entropic focus as a reaction when they take damage (and gain EP from damage they take from the triggering attack, if appropriate).
Entropy Points can be expended in various ways, some of which you gain through vanguard aspects and disciplines. As long as you have at least 1 Entropy Point in your entropic pool, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your Armor Class
As part of a full action to charge or a move action to move your speed, you can expend 1 EP to gain a +10-foot enhancement bonus to your speed (normally land speed, but you can apply it to the speed for any movement type you have).
As a move action, you can expend EP to boost the damage of the next entropic strike attack you make before the start of your next turn. You must decide how many EP to expend when you take this move action, and you can’t expend more EP than your level. If the boosted entropic strike hits, you deal +1d4 damage for every EP expended.
- Entropic Strike (Su) - 1st Level
You can focus the power of entropy into a forceful attack. Though you must touch your target to damage it, the damage is not from the impact but from focused waves of entropic energy that unbind and dissolve your target, crush it, or both. Your entropic strike is a magical one-handed advanced melee weapon with the operative weapon special property that targets EAC (even when dealing bludgeoning damage). You can make this attack with nearly any body part and do not need a hand free to use this ability. Using your entropic strike does not require any additional action to use beyond the action you take to make an attack (for example, it can be used to make an attack of opportunity.) For any calculation that requires the item level of your entropic strike, treat your vanguard level as your entropic strike’s item level.
You can also deliver an entropic strike with any melee weapon, or any shield that allows you to make unarmed attacks (replacing the normal attack with your entropic strike). The attack’s damage is equal to the entropic strike damage of a vanguard of either your class level or a class level equal to the weapon’s item level, whichever is lower. When you use this option, your entropic strike is considered to be made of whatever material the weapon or shield is made of (such as for the purposes of bypassing DR or creature weaknesses). Additionally, you can apply any weapon special property, critical hit effect, or weapon fusion the melee weapon or shield has to your entropic strike as long as the effect can be applied to a one-handed advanced melee weapon that deals acid or bludgeoning damage, doesn’t use additional ammunition or charges, and doesn’t require information beyond that specified for your entropic strike to function. If the weapon special property, critical hit effect, or weapon fusion requires information provided for your weapon (such as the amount of a bleed critical hit effect), use the value for the weapon you are gaining the effect from.
At 1st level, your entropic strike deals damage equal to 1d3 + your Constitution modifier, but you do not add your Strength modifier (unlike most melee attacks). For each attack, you can deal acid damage, bludgeoning damage, or both. This damage increases as you gain levels (see Table 2–2: Vanguard). At 10th level, you also add your Strength modifier to the damage of your entropic strike. At 5th level, when you use any combat maneuver for which you have Improved Combat Maneuver, you can target a foe’s EAC + 8 (rather than KAC + 8) to determine success, and you also determine the level of success (such as how far you push a foe with a successful bull rush) using EAC.
Worker Shirren: Bioengineered for labor, power, and agility, and considered expendable by their Swarm creators, worker shirrens demonstrate physical strength otherwise uncommon among their kind. Their expendability manifests in a lack of the natural insight and durability found in other shirrens. A worker shirren’s ability adjustments are +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, and −2 Charisma.
Size and Type: Shirrens are Medium humanoids with the shirren subtype.
Blindsense: Shirrens’ sensitive antennae grant them blindsense (vibration)—the ability to sense vibrations in the air—out to 30 feet. A shirren ignores the Stealth bonuses from any form of visual camouflage, invisibility, and the like when attempting a Perception check opposed by a creature’s Stealth check. Even on a successful Perception check, any foe that can’t be seen still has total concealment (50% miss chance) against a shirren, and the shirren still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment. A shirren is still flatfooted against attacks from creatures it can’t see.
Individual Obsession: Shirrens delight in individuality and experience a rush whenever they exercise their free will. This has led to many shirrens developing an obsession that stems from their personal tastes and choices. Shirrens with this trait choose one skill at 1st level. The chosen skill becomes a class skill for them, and they gain a +2 racial bonus to checks with that skill. If the chosen skill is already a class skill at 1st level, they instead gain 1 additional skill rank at each level that must be invested into the chosen skill. Shirrens who gain the chosen skill as a class skill after 1st level don’t gain these additional skill ranks. [Piloting]
Limited Telepathy: Shirrens can communicate telepathically with any creatures within 30 feet with whom they share a language. Conversing telepathically with multiple creatures simultaneously is just as difficult as listening to multiple people speak.
