Verthani and Second Skin

[Swordman]

I have a player that made a Verthani Operative. She hasn't actually played yet, but asked about the Skin Mimic ability, mainly if Second Skin armor negates the ability. I'm curious as to whether I should allow the ability to function with her armor or not.

[Tyrnis]

Per the ability, clothing or armor that covers more than 1/4 of their body does block the ability. That being said, the protection from armor often comes in the form of force fields rather than just armor plating, so I'd say that any equipment they bought would be customized for their species and thus allow them to use their racial ability. Likewise, armor found in loot could be adjusted with an engineering check to do the same.

[BPorter]

It seems pretty clear that it negates it:

Skin Mimic:
A verthani wearing clothing or armor that covers more than one-quarter of his body can’t use this ability.

Second Skin:
This flexible body stocking <-- sounds like a under armor/wetsuit and definitely covers more than 25% of the wearer's body.

[Tyrnis]

I think a good example of a Verthani's Second Skin would be Envy's outfit from Full Metal Alchemist.

EDIT: Added in a link to an image for convenience, in case someone isn't familiar with the series.

[Swordman]

I was thinking something similar...but the armors that are specifically clear or only a couple of physical parts with forcefields are all higher level. I guess I might go with the idea that the armor is custom and thus still compatible with the racial ability.
Thanks guys!

[Ravingdork]

Worst case scenario, the Verthani has to modify the armor to suit his needs. That's one skill check (or some chump change) away.

If you get secondhand armor that wasn’t tailored for you, you can have it adjusted, which requires a successful Engineering check (DC = 10 + 2 × the armor’s level). Alternatively, you can spend 10% of the armor’s purchase price to have it adjusted by a professional—typically an armorsmith or anyone with multiple ranks in Engineering.

That's all it takes. The developers designed Starfinder to be largely permissive, not restrictive. With the preponderance of nonhumanoid aliens with strange morphology, they kind of had to be.

The first page of the Starfinder Armory basically says everything works with every playable race, requiring the above-mentioned adjustments at the worst.

So, basically flavor your armor to have more shielding than actual covering, and you're golden.

[Swordman]

Thanks Ravingdork!
That's almost certainly what I will do. I just was curious as to whether anybody on here had a similar situation. I'm sure the player will appreciate the allowance of an ability out of the normal. I didn't want to punish her and say that her ability wouldn't work with armor, as that is a serious penalty!

Thanks again guys for the help!

[Ravingdork]

Happy to be of help!

When I have a character that requires unusual gear modifications like this (a human with the climbing suckers augmentation, for example), I typically just write "modified for climbing suckers" (or something similar) in parenthesis next to her armor listing under the character sheet's gear section.