I'm brand new to tabletops, and was told to check this game out. I have the core rulebook and started building a human envoy with an outlaw theme. My question is what abilities and feats do I need to take at level 1? There appears to be quote a few and I'm a bit confused.
The generic advice: as a human envoy take longarm proficiency and weapon focus (longarms). Then take get 'em as you improvisation to buff your allies.
Then, depending on your ability scores, skills, and the rest of your party, put your skill expertise into computers or diplomacy, or maybe bluff or intimidate.
This just makes a basic envoy that can buff it's allies attacks, still does decent damage at later levels with longarms, and is good at a specific skill.
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So going down the checklist of things needed to play... do you have a group ? :)
Your typical envoy stands in the back and shoots while encouraging their party members in battle
Step 1: Race and class. Check. Humans.. those are the weird bald ones right?
Step 2: Stats
Typically Fabulous Human Envoy
Str 10
Dex 10 3 points +1 for theme= 14
Con 10
Int 10 3 points = 13
Wis 10
cha 10 4 points +2 human bonus= 16
Strength is for hitting stuff and carrying things. You convince people to do that for you.
Dex. Helps you shoot things and helps you not be hit in your precious body parts. Your best armor is the other party members standing in front of you. Many bread and butter envoy abilities combine seemlessly with a buff and an attack so you may want to be decent at that.
Con: How hardy you are. Not a bad place to have points but not necessary. Hopefully...
Int: Envoys have a surprising number of skills besides people skills. It also helps to have more skills. So a little of this helps.
Wisdom: Honestly if you had common sense would you be in this mess?
Charisma: Your force of personality.
10 is the lowest a human can start with because they don't have any stat penalties. Some other species start with an 8 at things they're bad at, for example tiny ysoki (space rats) are usually a little weaker than other races.
18 is the highest you can have at character creation. Some people like to start with an 18, but envoys usually do a little better when they're more well rounded. There are some diminishing returns for starting with the highest stats.
You can move these around a little bit and it won't matter much. Note you'll have one odd stat. Don't have 2 odd stats. A 12 or 13 strength adds 1 to strength stuff, a 14 or 15 strength adds 2 to strength stuff, a 16 adds 3 to strength stuff etc. Having 2 odd stats is taking away a bonus somewhere.
Skills:
Envoys start with 6 skill points. Plus more for the int modifier. So typ there would have 7 skill points. Your ranks are limited by 1, so at first level typ would have to get 7 different skills with 1 rank each.
You can put ranks in any skill you want, but Typ would get more of class skills Typs class skills are set by the envoy
Class Skills: Acrobatics (Dex), Athletics (Str), Bluff (Cha), Computers (Int), Culture (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Engineering (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Medicine (Int), Perception (Wis), Piloting (Dex), Profession (Cha, Int, or Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Stealth (Dex)
And because typh is an outlaw he gains a +1 bonus to sleight of hand. (If sleight of hand wasn't a class skill for envoys it would have become one for typ anyway)
Bluff: misleading people.
Diplomacy: making friends
Intimidate: Can't we all get along... or else
Are the "Face" skills. And you should definitely pick those up. Your parties vesk soldier is probably SCARIER than you are, but part of knowing how to intimidate someone [i]skillfully[i] is knowing that someone screaming in terror is usually.. less than productive.
Disguise can be very useful, and is a charisma based skill, so grabbing that as well is a good idea.
past that this is a good place to fill your character out. Do they busk for pennies as a cover? With a good charisma professions like sing or dance can help your cover or launch a career. Medicine is never a bad idea, and Envoys don't lack for healing abilities. Culture can help you know how to make friends and influence people not of your species. (IE, do NOT ask the Kasatha for a peek under the scarf on the first date... third date...or firrst marriage even...) and pick the right fork at dinner.
Your skill modifier=
Your ranks (1) +
Your stat modifier (+3 for charisma based skills for Typ, +2 for dex based skills, +1 for int based skills, no + or - for other skills)
+3 if its a class skill: As an envoy you practice diplomacy day in and day out, so with a little effort you get VERY good at it. A space druid can join toast masters, but doesn't get to practice it nearly as often. Conversely you CAN join the boyscouts and go camping by putting a rank in survival , but won't be as good at it as the space druid who isn't camping they live that way. Most of your skills should get this.
+1 to your sleight of hand for being an outlaw
+1d6 (rolled each time you attempt the skill) if it's your envoy expertise skill. (see next)
So to convince someone that your envoy absolutely walked into the store with that Armani jacket, yes with the price tag on it, he would roll 1d20+7
Envoy stuff:
At first level you get one improvisation. These are the main talents/abilities of the envoy. A full list is here Linky but remember you can only get the level 1 ones.
Inspiring boost is a popular choice, as you can heal your parties staminia pool.
Get em is another popular choice, as everyone enjoys turning misses into hits.
Expertise: You're really good at a skill. Pick a skill and when you roll to use it, instead of rolling a d20 you roll a d20 AND a D6 and add them together.
Bluff (Cha), Computers (Int), Culture (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Engineering (Int), Intimidate (Cha), and Medicine (Int).
Feats
As a human envoy i would second the call for picking up longarm proficiency. Possibly with weapon focus
I know it's not sneaky but the mechanics of the game really favor long arms, especially for envoys. The operative does very well with pistols, I've seen a few builds that make them...work I guesse, but they don't match well with the envoy; Look at han solo's "pistol". Tell me you don't shoot that thing in two hands... You can always make the gun look like something else.
Skill focus (+3 to a skill) can help, but be sure it's not a skill you want to use your envoy abilities on. (Like pilot or sleight of hand). Probably the number one mistake newguys make is to try to combine different abilities to add to skills. Most ways of adding skills are insight bonuses. Types of bonuses like insight don't stack with each other. Skill focus and your expertise usually overlap with each other, making it.. less than optimial to double up.
Gear
Usually you get 1k credits to start. You NEED armor: armor is your spacesuit. This is a space exploration game. Second skin works fine. You SHOULDN"T be getting swung at much. Get one with at least one upgrade slot
As a human I HIGHLY recommend you spend 200 credits, buy an infrared sensor armor upgrade. This lets you see in the dark. Humans are the only nightblind species in the galaxy. Do you know what turning on a flashflight is to things that live in the dark? The dinner bell. May as well wear a sign that says "I'm in an environment I'm not suited to and delicious"
You should have a ranged weapon. Or two. You don't want to try to shoot lasers at the fire elemental (they're immune) so get two different types of damage if you can.
Buy a melee weapon. If someone gets in your face, take it out, pretend you know which end is the pointy one, and it will help your friends hit them when they come to help you out. (Friends help you move. Real friend shelp you flank for +2 to hit)
How to build a character ignore the starfinder society stuff unless its for starfinder society.
I would highly recommend putting a fusion on your weapon. Magical enchantments are consumer level products in starfinder, available to anyone. The Glamor fusion lets you make your weapon look like something innocuous like a data pad ( tablet) , called lets you pop the gun into your hand in an instant and start shooting.
Hope this helps!