First Character: Retro Android

[Isaac Zephyr]

My Pathfinder group may do Starfinder for our next game, which sucks a little. I was looking forward to a Samsaran Oracle in our next game, but if we're gonna play Starfinder rather than convert for a few hours, I figured I'd play something Starfinder. I was first thinking a Kasatha cause they looked interesting, but instead I went to go make a miniature to paint and ended up really liking this one I came up with.

It was a super old-school robot looking character, with a strong "Rosie the Riveter" vibe. So I conceived the idea of like a gen 1 android mechanic that's still in service. Like she's older than android rights, is humanoid is shape but looks pretty much 100% bot (warforged style face and bulbs for eyes). She's rusty, but determined all she wants to do is keep working. She refuses though to go through renewal. She knows her body is far too old for a new soul to inhabit, so when it's finally done with it's probably going to be scrapped for parts.

So the end concept is like a middle aged woman who refuses to have kids, and just wants to keep fixing spacecraft until she's unable to continue. The advice, I went with Android, Mechanic, Ace Pilot, and feeling Exocortex plugged into her old brain. Her custom rig is so old that it's handheld and kept in a compartment in her leg (purchased hideaway limbs and everything). Speaks all three forms of common, spoken and signed Shirren and only verbal Kasatha.

The advice I need, are there better choices for this kind of concept? (Maybe a pure construct racial option to represent she's pre-modern android tech?) If not, how old should this android be? I've ballparked her 6'2", 200lbs (made from heavier less ideal materials) and about 173, which meant she was 23 when androids first got rights. However, as my Pathfinder group has been playing Iron Gods, I'm aware androids in their current form have been around a /lot/ longer than that. So suggestions?

[Ecliptic12]

Seems fine...

Another option is to go SROS (from pact worlds) and go full robot.

[OtrovaGomas]

Like Ecliptic12 mentioned, an SRO may be the best fit for your idea, since Androids are still fleshy, they are more akin of replicants, they don't need to breath but need to eat (unless you buy a clear spindle and just fluff it). Overall I like your concept.
But if it must be an Android then it can be one with replaced arms and legs with mechanical ones, and skin very old dermal plating that is so old and rusted that it gives no DR any more

[Brew Bird]

Yeah, I'm gonna give another recommendation for SRO. They have a number of cool "Robot-y" features, like a built in comm unit and a free cybernetic upgrade (which you can swap out for better things as you level up).

Their fluff also suggests they face similar prejudice to androids, though their less human appearance gives them additional difficulties. That sounds like it might fit your character concept pretty well.

Medium SROs have a strength bonus, so maybe a melee build would be fun? You could fluff your weapon as some sort of repurposed tool.

Age wise, Android emancipation started 150 years ago in the pact worlds, so she'd have to be older than that. Of course, for an immortal robot, that shouldn't be an issue.

[Isaac Zephyr]

I like these ideas, though I don't yet have the Pact Worlds book in my possession, and can't find anything from in in the SRD at all.

I presume SRO stands for a "Sentient Robotic Organism"? What is their fluff like outside of the prejudice? And what are their other racial abilities? I've grown to like the inneptitude Androids have for Sense Motive, and I'd so far built the character Int+Dex based to play fully off the idea of a Starship Expert.

[Brew Bird]

You presume correctly. Fluff-wise, there isn't much on them. Just that they're robots advanced enough to have souls and be fully sentient.

SROs are actually constructs, with most of the immunities that comes with. They can be healed via normal healing magic (though they get only half the benefit), as well as be targeted by effects that can normally only hit humanoids. SROs also get a free level-dependent cybernetic upgrade, which they can swap out as they level up. They come in 2 sizes, medium SROs get a strength boost, and small ones get a dex boost. Neither size have any other bonuses or penalties.

[Ecliptic12]

yep. Medium (2str) or small (2dex), able to benefit from spells that target stuff instead of people, like make whole, but they only get 50% of the benefit from healing spells. Instead of medicine, you use engineering on them. They have a datajack and comm built in, and get an extra cybernetic component that is equal to their level/2, and can be swapped out. They also get immunities to bleed, disease,
death effects, poison, nonlethal damage, and
sleep (unless the spell or whatever targets constructs, specifically). They don't need to breathe, still need to go offline for 8 hours a day, and get a +4 to saves against stuff that targets humanoids only.

As Bird said, they have very little background information (none of the races in Pact Worlds is well fleshed-out), but they are more or less Androids with MORE discrimination and bias because they look like robots (they don't have a unified appearance. They can be humanoid, or look like Wall-E). They have the same protections as androids, but those protections are less widespread and less respected.

[VampByDay]

SROs are basically Johnny 5 from the 80s cult classic Short Circut. They are very complex robots that have somehow attracted a soul, and thus have a very strange interaction with magic.