What Does "Flexible Skill" Do?

[Frog_The_Bandit]

So I've recently run into an issue where it is unclear what Flexible Skill's values at 9th and 17th are meant to be. Typically, I use Archives of Nethys for easily accessible Starfinder information. On Archives of Nethys it says that at 9th level and 17th level an Evolutionist's skill ranks increase to "6 + Int mod" and "8 + Int mod" respectively. However, it doesn't seem to have the correct amount of skill ranks one would retroactively receive for those jumps (instead of getting 16 for the 9th level increase you get 8 and instead of getting 32 for the 17th one you get 16). I was wondering if this was maybe a mistake and decided to check my PDF. In the PDF is states that at 9th and 17th you got to "5 + Int mod" and "6 + Int mod". Immediately thinking this may be result of errata, I decided to consult the FAQ and Errata page only to find nothing there regarding the change. Decided to do some googling and found a Reddit page that claimed that there were in fact erratas; the post on to detail that Evolutionist were meant to start out with "4 + Int mod" skill ranks and that Flexible Skill granted the bump in skill ranks detailed in Archives of Nethys. I had noticed that the initial skill ranks in the PDF were wrong so thought that maybe the Archives of Nethys was correct, as they had the correct "4 + Int mod" for Evolutionist's initial skill ranks. I decided that since my PDF was a year old, that maybe redownloading it would reveal a potential errata. So I redownloaded it and nothing changed. Now having tried everything, I don't know what to do. Was there in fact an errata that never got implemented in the PDFs or recorded in the Errata and FAQ page? Or is Archives of Nethys just incorrect?

TL;DR: There's a discrepancy between Archives of Nethys and the official PDF regarding Evolutionist's Flexible Skill feature, and I'm not sure which one is correct. If someone could clear it up I would very much appreciate it.

[Milo v3]

That's very odd, there used to be an errata note that did state they had 4+Int but you are correct in that it is not currently present.

I can only assume it was accidentally removed.

[BigNorseWolf]

You get more skill points and its retroactive. That's it.

It's supposed to represent you evolving, the problem is that everyone can do the same thing every time they level or just buy/upgrade an ability crystal and up their int

[Frog_The_Bandit]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

You get more skill points and its retroactive. That's it.

It's supposed to represent you evolving, the problem is that everyone can do the same thing every time they level or just buy/upgrade an ability crystal and up their int

I understand what the intent of Flexible Skill is, however there seems to be conflicting values between Archives of Nethys and the official PDF with a parties I've seen elsewhere claiming there was an errata that I can't seem to find in the actual FAQ and Errata article.

Also yes anyone can purchase personal upgrades or bump their Intelligence, but they can't bump the skill rank floor provided from their class as well.

[Mr. Bonkers]

The design team made a clarification when this problem came up for Starfinder Society. I too cannot find it in the Starfinder errata or the Starfinder FAQ, but it is written down in the Starfinder Society Character Options under Starfinder Interstellar Species (Link to the page)

Designer Team wrote:

Evolutionist: Per design team clarification, the Evolutionist class gets skill ranks equal to 4 + INT modifier. The Flexible Skill ability (page 12) increases these ranks to 6 + INT at 9th level and 8 + INT at 17th level.

[Frog_The_Bandit]

Mr. Bonkers wrote:

The design team made a clarification when this problem came up for Starfinder Society. I too cannot find it in the Starfinder errata or the Starfinder FAQ, but it is written down in the Starfinder Society Character Options under Starfinder Interstellar Species (Link to the page)

Designer Team wrote:

Evolutionist: Per design team clarification, the Evolutionist class gets skill ranks equal to 4 + INT modifier. The Flexible Skill ability (page 12) increases these ranks to 6 + INT at 9th level and 8 + INT at 17th level.

Oh my gosh, thank you so much! Good to finally have some sort of official source to this, as well as another good resource to rely on in cases like this! (I wasn't aware of that page's existence.)

[BigNorseWolf]

Frog_The_Bandit wrote:

Also yes anyone can purchase personal upgrades or bump their Intelligence, but they can't bump the skill rank floor provided from their class as well. [/QUOTE

It really doesn't matter where the points are coming from, the effect on the character is the same. Anyone can just instant expert themselves into skills by putting level ranks in there at level up.

An ability to evolve should work like the androids infosphere access.