Hunting for Chimeric or cosmetic cybernetic altering rules


Advice


I'm currently doing a set up for a quickly growing in scale cyberpunk themed campaign using Starfinder but I've run into a bit of a hitch in something a lot of my players mentioned wanting.

Specifically they would like to see stuff like genetic alterations being a thing (possibly as something corporations shill like fashions nowadays). The way they describe it is things like a human who brought something that now gives them outward traits you'd normally see in a Vesk or has light fox fur instead of skin.

I really like the idea but I've no idea how to achieve it mechanically speaking, if anyone has seen official rules, 3rd party or has built something like this before I'd love help getting this sorted.

Second Seekers (Jadnura)

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

There's tons of "messing around with your genetics" stuff :) At lower levels, you can use magic to change the way you look or your gender characteristics, although both are still within the general 'norm' for your species. If it was something you were interested in, though, it'd be pretty easy to house-rule that you could use those for things outside of your species' norm, like using an appearance change serum to become a furred human or whatever. Some classes or class builds also dip into the whole "screw around with your own genes" theme; it's bread-and-butter stuff for biohackers and evolutionists, and there's even some class features that play around with altering yourself, like the mystic's Shifter or Geneturge connections, or the polymorphic disguise envoy alternate class features. Outside of classes, the biotechnician theme plays with that idea, too. Some species have lots of genetic potential stuff too, like barathus, astrazoans, grays,, reptoids, and even verthani, to an extent.

Outside of permanent change, there's also ways to disguise yourself, with magic or tech, like holoskin, hats of disguise, or Disguise Self.

At higher levels, actual species change is possible, with stuff like flux figs, or reincarnation (available as both a spell, or a non-class-specific ritual, or even a thing some Mystics can specialise in.)

As far as "plugging bits and bobs from other species into yourself" goes, there's an entire type of augmentations for that: species grafts! You can flavour these are much or as little as you like, from "this mimics the functionality of other species' stuff via magic or tech" to "you have literally replaced your hand with vesk claws." It's up to you & your group how much you want to lean into it!


Species grafts are perfect, thank you for the help.

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