The new style of NPC stat block excludes a lot of worthwhile info for the sake of brevity...or something. Though I think this is a big mistake on the part of the designers, as not knowing what feats went into an NPC or monster really limits a GMs ability to tailor things appropriately for his games, that's a discussion for another thread.
I've noticed though, that many NPCs don't have clothes, batteries, or other common items listed. Are you really going to tell me that the necrovite in First Contact is naked? That the pirates shown don't have a personal comm unit with the contact info of all their loved ones or vile cohorts?
Who doesn't have a freaking phone? It's totally unbelievable that the vast majority of members from a high tech society wouldn't essentially always have portable comm units on their persons.
What if I'm playing a crime lord, and need to make a bigger example out of my victim by going after his families? You mean to tell me that I have to look them up on the holosphere, that my victim likely didn't have a comm unit I could easily hack and reference?
Such a familiar trope that doesn't seem to work in Starfinder due to an incomplete stat block. Shame.
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Uh...let's examine some Bestiary Stat blocks in Pathfinder shall we?
Drow: leather armor, light steel shield, rapier, hand crossbow with 20 bolts, drow poison [2 doses], 3d6 gp, other treasure
Goblins: leather armor, light wooden shield, short sword, short bow with 20 arrows, other treasure
Now, let's examine some Starfinder example stat blocks:
Space Pirate: second skin, cryo grenade I (2), survival knife, tactical semi-auto pistol with 20 rounds
Space Goblin: tattered flightsuit, dogslicer, junklaser, makeshift engineering tools
So...looking at those, the only real difference in terms of equipment types is the 'other treasure' line. Which, really, is wasted text since it's on almost every monster. My bet would be that they went with just mentioning that once at the beginning of the stat block section in Alien Archive, or something like that. Which is eminently logical.
Or to put it another way: Only having combat gear in Bestiary stat blocks is not 'simplified' or 'different' in Starfinder. That's always been the case. They've probably just moved where they note that the NPCs might have other stuff.
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I'll point out every single level 1 armor and higher has a built in comm unit. So the space pirates in First Contact do have "phones" and tier-0 computers. You totally can hack them.
Whether there's any useful info on them is determined by how much free time the GM has. :)
Haha. Forgot about the armor can do just about everything bit. Thanks Hiruma Kai!
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I'll point out every single level 1 armor and higher has a built in comm unit. So the space pirates in First Contact do have "phones" and tier-0 computers. You totally can hack them.
Whether there's any useful info on them is determined by how much free time the GM has. :)
Where's this stated? I'm having trouble finding it.
I'll double check when I get home for page references, but it's in the Comm unit description or the Computers section, pretty early on, as I recall.
EDIT: Page 430, Second heading, second sentence. "Small enough to be carried in a pocket, they also come automatically integrated into all armor of 1st level or higher."
Yeah, it's definitely free if it's included in the armor.
