Karzoug the Claimer

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Hello everyone!

I'm GMing Starfinder and one of my players wants to play a Half-Verthani. Which there aren't really rules for at the moment. So I took a moment to build a template and would like your opinion. Does this look too broken? is it okay? What should I tweak?

Half-Verthani

Ability Adjustments: +2 to any 1 ability (except INT), +2 INT, -2 STR
Hit Points: 4

Abilities:

Size and Type: Half-Verthani are Medium Humanoids with both the Verthani and Human subtypes.
Bonus Feat: Half-Verthani select one extra feat at 1st level.
Easily Augmented: Half-Verthani have spent a long time implanting devices into their bodies. A half-verthani can install an additional augmentation (cybernetics only) into one system that already has an augmentation.
Half-Breed: For effects targeting creatures by type, Half-Verthani count as both humans and verthani (whichever effect is worse).
Skill Focus: Half-Verthani take after both ancestors and are highly skilled, though when in practice they take after their verthani heritage more and individually they tend to focus on a particular discipline. Half-Verthani gain Skill Focus as a bonus feat.
Skin Mimic: Half-Verthani can manipulate the pigments in their skin at will and with astonishing precision, creating bright decorative patterns or deceptive camouflage. A half-verthani who stays stationary for 1 round gains a +10 racial bonus to Stealth checks (this bonus doesn’t stack with the invisibility spell or similar effects). If the half-verthani takes any action, she loses this bonus until he once again spends 1 round remaining still. A half-verthani wearing clothing or armor that covers more than one-quarter of her body can’t use this ability.

A Half-Verthani's average height is 6-8 feet tall and their average weight is 150-250 lbs. The Age of Maturity for a Half-Verthani is 18 years old. Maximum Age is 90+2d20


Hello all, I'm a new DM and I need a little advice. I've DMed part way through Rise of the Runelords the group graduated before we could finish. So when my new group needed a DM and no one was particularly forthcoming I decided to volunteer to step up. I created my own world and decided the story that I would try and help steer them down.

To sum it up:

There's a seafaring race, elves, humans, dwarves, etc. The Humans are in a single city-state that has developed gun powder but are pretty happy just being the main trading port of the continent and don't need to conquer everyone else. The Elves and Dwarves are almost constantly bickering/at war. The seafarers come in and try to do the viking/pirate thing every now and then. But it's all pretty much a stalemate. Well 20 years ago the seafarers got it in their heads that all the nations will eventually fight themselves to ruin. So they kidnapped the Elven Queen, Dwarven King, Human Premier, "and" their own High Admiral. They then locked all the leaders together and being lonely and desperate for connection (with a little magic involved) they got "freaky" and boom a Son and Daughter were born.

The children were groomed from an early age to be rulers of the whole continent. There was an earlier experiment that tried to combine all four races into one ruler right off the bat. That resulted in a deformed woman who was trained in necromancy and at the start of the campaign unleashes an army of Zombies that precedes the new King and Queen to weaken their enemies before their arrival.

So I made a semi-foolhardy mistake. I thought it would be entertaining to make the players' party a gypsy troop. This would explain why they are ready to move, new to the area where the campaign began, and give them a reason to all get along. I've seen too many groups where the characters have no reason to work together and it destroys the campaign and thought this would be a clever way to fix that.

Well it sort of worked. It allowed them to be mobile, they (for the most part) get along great, and since they're just simple performers and travelers they don't know everything there is to know about what's going on in the world. But it resulted in an inadvertent side effect, since they're gypsies they feel they can just run away from most problems that I throw at them. They have no connection to the world and don't seem to care if the zombies/seafarers conquer everything. (They don't know about the seafarers yet)

So using a little ingenuity I've got them to start caring. The half-elf cleric is actually the niece to the new Elvish Queen, the halfling warrior was actually the dwarves' general and he's in exile with the gypsies do to the dwarves blaming him for the loss of their previous King (this actually worked out really seamlessly with the backstory he had in mind, still can't seem to get him to care though, maybe when he finds out his King is still alive?), and I made the Human Ranger the new King of the Gypsies.

Here's the problem I have there's a fourth final PC, he's a half-elf ranger who's pretty much a blank slate except that he's exceptionally devout to Desna. The player is also a bit flakey and doesn't show up every session, to the point where we just play whether he's there or not. So what reason can I give his character to care about this war that's brewing and not run away from everything? I thought about making him the bastard son of a random Elven Noble but I would love to do something other than "Oh you're related to the Elvish Aristocracy" again.

Suggestions?