#starfinder operative

[sootchild]

Playing some Starfinder 2e on Sunday.

[brighan]

The news are out! I've been given the great honor to work for WARFRAME & Paizo Inc. in their new collaboration!

Extremely grateful to the Digital Extremes team for their love and support and for giving me this opportunity. This means the world to me! Warframe is one of my favorite games of all time and I still cannot believe that I got to work on such a cool project. Thank you so much! 💜⚡

[dailycharacteroption]

Powered Armor Jockey (Starfinder Archetype)

(art by Shardanic on DeviantArt)

Ah, power armor. Smaller than a proper mech but heavier and tougher than anything in the heavy armor category.

The technical definition of power armor is any suit of armor that comes with additional servos, pistons, and other mechanical parts meant to transfer ordinary human motion into something with a lot more torque, effectively making the wearer superhumanly strong, though depending on the setting, maybe not any faster since moving too fast without protections could see the armor ripping the wearer apart inside of it, which would of course defeat the purpose of it being armor. Additionally, typically power armor is coated in a layer of heavy plating dense enough to take heavy fire which an ordinary human could not normally move in, but can due to the help of the power armor itself.

If you’ve been reading your item descriptions, you might note that a lot of heavy armor in Starfinder is in fact technically power armor, what with assistive servos built in, but proper power armor in the system has it’s own strength score, and is big enough to have hard points for attaching weapons even if they don’t have the integrated keyword.

Now, I told you all that to tell you this: I love power armor, and I love specialist pilots for power armor even more, and that’s what we’re covering today in the form of the Powered Armor Jockey!

Not just a heavy ordinance pilot, these jockeys are also equal part modder enthusiast and field repair mechanics as well, no matter what their skillset is otherwise. This is part of the beauty of the archetype too, as anyone can take it as long as they’re proficient, and while combat-focused classes are the most obvious choice, we’ll see exactly why there’s something here for everyone.

These specialists are constantly modifying and tuning their armor, allowing them to add either an additional weapon mount or space for an upgrade. Later on, they refine this to be able to have both.

They also become intimately familiar with how their armor moves, allowing them to move closer to their normal speed, both in powered and heavy armor.

With knowledge of leverage and the upper limits of their armor, these jockeys can squeeze a bit more power and hit harder with the limbs of their power armor.

Finally, for all their love of the armor, these warriors understand that their lives are still more important than the suit, and they can choose to let their armor take the brunt of attacks they can’t stop outright, damaging it but keeping them alive.

A pretty solid archetype all around, and perfect for any character seeking to specialize in such heavy armor. Now, soldier is the obvious choice, and armor storm is definitely going to be one of your fighting style choices. The fact that so many abilities synergize and specifically stack between the two guarantees it, but beyond that, you might specialize in heavy armament with bombard, bullet storm, or shock and awe, or mix in melee focus with hit and run or wrathful warrior. Other combat classes like solarian and vanguard likely will lean either super defensive to become nearly unkillable, or let the armor do the protecting and go full offense. Meanwhile, nanocyte or evolutionist might be shockingly versatile in such armor.

With non-combat classes, mechanic and technomancer are obvious choices with their technical know-how. You might think experiemental armor is the only choice for mechanic here, but consider the exocortex as an onboard targeting system, experimental weapon as a unique integrated weapon, or even a drone support buddy covering your back. Meanwhile, mages of all stripes can make use of the powered armors durability or strength in a pinch while hammering foes and buffing allies, and sneaky classes like operative and envoy can put in some work making for surprisingly agile and fast power armor sets not unlike Samus Aran.

There’s plenty of ways you can roleplay a character like this. Whether they’re currently serving in a military, a mercenary company, or some other role, they can be anything from brash hotheads to more technical combatants. What remains true is their appreciation for their armor, which can range from technical fascination to an anthropomorphized bond with the armor. On that note, it’s important to remember that it’s completely possible to upgrade the stats of a suit of power armor instead of trading up to the next best one if your character would rather keep their current suit.

Powered armor pilots are known for being eccentric, with some even having small pets they take on missions. However, few are stranger than Aldo, Callsign: Grindhouse, who has a cable serpent named Escavor inhabiting his armor. The two formed a strong bond with each other after the latter spontaneously gained life inside the former’s armor during a mana storm. The internal damage nearly compromised the armor, but the two saved each other and have been inseparable ever since.

Balnar’s Folly is a section of the Kollas System’s asteroid belt that is also the territory of a notorious ysoki pirate, Captain Bloodtail, who fights with her custom rigged armor she calls Scrapclaws as well as a heavily armed support drone called Noisemaker. Needless to say, she likes getting up close and personal with the defenders of any ship she intends to take.

The party is tasked with infiltrating an enemy stronghold, one that should in theory be relatively unguarded save for an on-site skeleton crew of soldiers. However, the intel was bad, and one of the enemy’s elite power armor units is there, a particularly eccentric but nevertheless deadly group.

[grumblglum]

"...and nobody says that."

Got my Starfinder crew all assembled. >:D Since my one friend and I can't find anyone locally who's interested in playing "Fly Free or Die" with us, I'm playing the full party by myself atm. Controlling all four units that happen to be my own OCs in their Starfinder versions makes it almost feel like a mini war-game, but I'm honestly so down for it!!

Here we have (left to right): Kat, the Pahtra Evolutionist Million, their Human Operative Paisley, Korasha Vanguard and Eric, a Damaya Envoy They get along well-enough in spite of their -ahem- "substantial" alignment differences, range being from chaotic good to evil, and each consider one another fast friends they'll fight for through thick and thin, each in their own ways. Two just happen to be a little more trouble than the others... I'll let you figure out who. haha

[pinnithin]

text post memes for our starfinder party’s operative

art by myself, @shannanigan-art and @cosmic-correspondence

[iravaid]

Campaign 2 where the bad ending happened and now the world depends on the capabilities of some of hte most wretched women on the planet. this too is yuri

[belabras]

Starfinder 2E Playtest Impressions

This week a report on the Starfinder 2E playtest from Owlcon 2024. Come see what's cooking!

[destiny2-names]

Tau is in sight

I KNOW

AND CALIBAN PRIME

AND OBERON REWORK

AND OPERATOR REWORK

AND PROTOFRAME VERSIONS OF HARROW AND WISP

AND A NEW DEVIL(?)-THEMED WARFRAME WITH A TAIL

AND A STARFINDER/WARFRAME TABLETOP RPG ADVENTURE

[honourablejester]

I’ve mentioned them a few times previously, but I just wanted to take a minute to talk about my favourite player species from Starfinder 1e:

Sarcesians.

Supposedly descended from the inhabitants of the two planets whose destruction long ago formed the Diaspora asteroid belt, sarcesians have adapted to low-gravity and thinair environments. Standing between 10 and 15 feet tall with bulbous eyes and spindly, elongated limbs, a sarcesian is able to adapt her physiology to survive in space by suspending her respiration and growing a pair of butterfly-like wings made of pure light. The wings act as solar sails, catching currents of radiation to propel her between the handful of inhabited asteroids and space platforms within the Diaspora. Thanks to arcane engines left behind by the sarcesians’ ancestors, the race has long managed to maintain creche worlds—asteroids with enough magical atmosphere, gravity, and warmth for the inhabitants to live comfortably and raise offspring. Compared to some other planets in the Golarion system, sarcesian creche worlds are beautiful and idyllic. They contain fields, forests, hills, lakes, and bucolic towns whose populations number in the low thousands. Many of these sanctuaries are linked by the River Between, an unusual body of water that actually flows between and through the asteroids; the water is prevented from floating off into space by a tube-shaped force field crafted by unknown hands. Sarcesians who leave the asteroid belt are sometimes hired as mercenaries specializing in surveillance and marksmanship, as they are accustomed to operating at vast distances from their targets. These sarcesians hone their innate patience even further in order to lie in wait for their marks for days atop bluffs, in dilapidated apartments, or even in the vacuum of space outside docking slips. Employers tend to pay well for this degree of dedication, making sarcesian snipers a highly sought-after commodity in certain areas of the galaxy.

--- Starfinder Alien Archive (2017)

The Diaspora is far and away my favourite of the Pact Worlds system. (Asteroid belt! Asteroid miners! Space pirates! Robot underground railroad! Space dwarves! Space rats with salvaged warships-turned-truck-stops! Cults of Nyarlathotep! Mysterious rivers contained by force fields flowing through space! Ships graveyards!) Like. There is truly nothing about the asteroid belt that I don’t fervently love. Absolutely fantastic setting, ten million out of ten, no notes. And the native species of the Diaspora is the sarcesians. And I absolutely love them.

They’re incredibly tall, spindly, lanky, grey-faced space giants from two shattered worlds who adapted to suddenly inhabiting vacuum with spectacular adroitness. They got a superweapon surprise from friendly neighbouring Eox, coughed a bit, walked it off, and are now chilling on idyllic asteroid creche worlds and hiring themselves out as fucking long range space snipers because they’re both used to operating in the vast distances of the vacuum of space, and also incredibly patient, which is my absolute favourite threatening trait to give a culture.

And I just … the wings. They can sprout solar sails while in the void to fly themselves to safety. They can suspend respiration and survive temporarily unprotected in vacuum. I don’t know what it is about space that makes me so paranoid, but there won’t be no explosive decompression for this space sniper! No sir! If your ship takes a direct hit to crew quarters while you were napping, provided the explosion itself doesn’t kill you, you can just fly yourself out of there and look for an intact section of ship to hook back into. It’s such an excellent insurance policy, and also so pretty. Golden solar sails to fly you to safety. So gorgeous.

Also it’s just … such an image, you know? That bit about the sarcesian sniper hanging in vacuum outside a space docking slip waiting for their target. The grey, silent figure hanging serene and deadly against the vast backdrop of space. They’re terrifying, and spectacular, and they make me want to play a sarcesian operative on a fucking space heist crew. The insurance policy sitting on the exterior of the space station waiting patiently for their cue. Heh.

I love them. I just really really love them. Sarcesians are unquestionably one of the coolest species in a setting that has no shortage of really cool species.

Also, Diaspora for the win! Absolute favourite part of the setting.

[spottysnail]

Character for an upcoming Starfinder 2e Playtest game.

Smuggler Operative. Small, gay, and probabably in debt (from buying gender transformation elixirs). Hugs and drugs!

[rhodes-knightwife]

Hello~! Been a while, hasn't it? I didn't die, and I've still been playing plenty of Arknights, but unfortunately I just haven't had the drive to really post anything too substantial for a while... until now. Until her.

Listen. Listen to me. I've loved this woman for a lot less time than some of y'all, only ever since the Hortus de Escapismo Rerun, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been living rent free in my head ever since. And well, while I have all these thoughts, let's revive a bit of an old idea of mine to marry two hobbies, one that I planned to do with her sister first, ironically enough...

Can you build Lemuen in Pathfinder 2e?

This is gonna be a long one folks, bear with me.

I'm not gonna go over too much Pathfinder stuff in this post, I'll try to keep it light for the newbies. I'll be going over the build in simple terms and only truly diving into the specifics for when they're especially appropriate to the character, so buckle up.

One quick thing to address: the wheelchair. It's a big part of what makes Lemuen so badass, that she can not only fight and be effective despite her disability but sometimes because of it! And it'd be just terrible to remove it... so we won't! Pathfinder has actual, official, encoded rules for wheelchairs, and they all basically mean she can operate as normal even in combat, don't worry. In fact, the chair itself will play into one or two tricks she'll have later!

For those new to Pathfinder character creation, you always start with your ABCs: Ancestry, Background, Class! The first is easy, thankfully; Sankta translate pretty much perfectly into the role of Empyreans – or aasimar, for our D&D friends. So, human with the nephilim heritage to make her an empyrean will give us all the heavenly flavor we might want.

Background-wise, while it would be easy and fair to argue that she should go with some sort of religious role, I think leaning on her time in the Pontifica Cohors Lateran and making her a Warrior makes the most sense, and gives us a few little nice additions for later.

Finally, the class is obvious... sorta. We're making her a Gunslinger, and hopefully I don't need to explain why. Why did I say 'sorta', then? Well... listen, if you wanna dip into yoinking a class from Starfinder, I think you could argue making her an Operative is an even better fit in some ways, but let's stick to the core system here! (But if this post does well enough... who knows?)

Without bothering with all the numbers, those choices leave us with solid attributes for what we want; max Dexterity is a given to aim that big ol' rifle, and a little bit of Strength from her military background will help her handle something with some recoil. A bit of angelic Charisma and just a tiny smidge of tactical Intelligence means that Constitution and Wisdom are our dump stats right now – not ideal, but five years in a coma will do that to you.

But that's all abstracts, all stuff that every character has; let's get to the juicy stuff!

Level 1

We get several new feats to start off, so let's touch on a few before we jump to her class abilities. First, let's make her an Angelkin, which fits well enough while giving her new languages, with the Empyrean language among them to stand in for Sankta empathy, at least for now. Her Warrior background also gives Lemuen one hell of an Intimidating Glare, meaning that even if whoever's on the other end of her gun's barrel doesn't speak one of her many languages, her eyes can still get the message across.

Now, we look to her class; Gunslinger subclasses are called 'Ways', and I only need to tell you one is called the 'Way of the Sniper' for you to know what we're choosing. Right now, this means that Lemuen's first shot in a fight deals extra damage thanks to well-placed aim, and that she can duck behind cover and hide as she reloads between shots to try and catch enemies off-guard. As for the feat proper, let's go with Hit the Dirt!, which lets Lemuen leap (or, roll) out of the way of a ranged attack and land prone to try and dodge it. This is actually somewhat helpful in her case, as being prone can help her hunker down and take cover from any returning fire while she sits dozens of feet away from the action.

Lastly for level 1, we have the stuff to round out the character; skills and equipment. She already has Stealth, Intimidation and Society (from her subclass, background and ancestry feat), but she gets a few extra; I won't be going into specifics here, so feel free to choose whichever feels right for you, though of course Religion is appropriate. Likewise, I won't touch on her equipment aside from mentioning her weapon: an arquebus. (Again, no fancy Starfinder guns!) It deals 1d8 damage... until Lemuen crits, at which point she adds another die and makes them all into d12s! And Gunslingers are very good at critting indeed. The tradeoff is that we needed some extra Strength to handle the kickback, but such is life!

And that's level 1! Things will go faster from here, don't worry.

Early Game (2-5)

Level 2 sees us get our first skill feat besides Intimidating Glare, but since they're so tied to skills and largely just quality of life improvements, I'll treat them the same as skills and leave specifics to you, if you try this build. This level also gets us another Gunslinger feat though, and that's much more fun! But we'll actually be going for something called an archetype here, meaning we give up our Gunslinger feat for something from a subset of feats that any character can take and grants some thematic abilities.

Don't worry, we're staying close to home; specifically, we're taking the Sniping Duo Dedication, which will allow Lemuen to designate an ally as her spotter and get a bunch of cool bonuses when fighting alongside them! Right now, Lemuen and the spotter both get a neat little damage boost on their next attack after the other hits an enemy.

(If you would rather stick with Gunslinger though, both Defensive Armaments and Warning Shot make for fun picks!)

Level 3 gets us a nifty class feature that allows a second save against any mind-controlling effects, through sheer stubbornness alone! Fitting, I'd say. Besides that, it gets us an increase to one of our skills – I recommend Stealth this early one – as well as a general feat! Once again, these are very broad and generic upgrades that often come down to personal preference, so I won't choose them for you.

Level 4 is the same as the second, and you'll see a pattern forming there! A skill feat of your choice, plus a class feat. We're dipping to Sniping Duo again to get Assisting Shot, meaning we make it easier for our allies to hit any enemy we've just shot. It doesn't even have to be our spotter, either! (If you're avoiding Sniping Duo though, Running Reload or one of the recommendations from level 2 works well too!)

Level 5 will boost three of our stats, which is pretty huge. We sink one into Dex; it doesn't actually increase since it's already so high, but it will when we reach level 10 and do this again. Besides that, upping our Charisma, Intelligence and Wisdom shores up some our previous weaknesses and boosts Lemuen's diplomatic and intimidation abilities!

Besides that, we get another skill increase, we get even better at shooting people (Lemuen is a Master with guns at level 5, which is ludicrous), and we get a whole new ancestry feat! There's not any especially thematic options for us here at level 5, so I'll go back to a first level feat, though one from her human side this time. Cooperative Nature simply makes us better at helping people out when they try difficult checks, and that seems fitting to me!

Mid-game (6-10)

Level 6 brings back the pattern of a skill feat and a class feat. We'll hop back on the main Gunsliger track to snag the appropriately named Sniper's Aim, which lets us take a longer time aiming our shots to make them more accurate; better one shot that hits than two that miss! Plus, it's a damn good impression of her S2, if you ask me, especially with the added caveat that it ignores concealment.

Level 7 is quick for us: a general feat, a skill increase, a boost to our Perception and a flat damage increase. Very nice, but no big choices for the build.

Level 8, however, brings more fun goodies! Besides another skill feat, we actually hit a bit of a split in our build, because your choice depends on what kind of build your spotter has. If your spotter is a ranged attacker (like, say, a certain redheaded sister with a love for automatic guns), then going for Sniper Duo's Vantage Shot feat is very nice, allowing both Lemuen and her spotter to roll Stealth against a target when the other shoots them, making them off-guard to the next attack on a success. This will be especially nice for Lemuen very soon!

But, if you're not using the archetype, or your spotter is more focused on melee attacks or utility magic, then Smoke Curtain is your best bet. Remember that time in the video where Lemuen did some sick wheelchair drifts and spread out a smokescreen to snag her sister out of danger? Well, here's that! Fire a shot and watch the whole area go up in smoke, giviny ou some really nice cover to Hide in using your special reload. On top of that, Sniper's Aim lets you ignore the smoke and aim perfectly despite it!

Level 9 brings with it a skill increase, as well as an ancestry feat; let's go with Cooperative Soul to upgrade the last one. Now, when aiding your party, you simply cannot fail to help them!

The more important aspect of level 9 though is a new ability from the Way of the Sniper; a new kind of shot that can leave targets bleeding if you catch them off-guard! Hope you've been putting those Stealth skills and abilities to good use!

Level 10 is a juicy one. Not only do we get more boosts to our attributes, letting us actually increase Dex and bump our other stats even more, but it also gets us another skill feat and class feat combo! Let's finally get our S1: Penetrating Fire lets us fire at two targets with one bullet, so long as they're in a line.

Late Game (11-15)

Level 11 gets us a skill increase, a general feat, and an increase to our Reflex saves. Nice!

Level 12 gives us another skill feat and lets us get a lite version of Lemuen's incredibly badass S3 with Shattering Shot. So long as you have an alchemical bomb to throw, this lets you throw it out and snipe it right out of the air, letting the damage rain down on a much wider area.

Level 13 increases both our armor proficiency, making us a little harder to tear through than wet tissue paper, and our weapon proficiency, putting us at the highest possible proficiency with guns far before almost any other character. It also gets us a skill increase and an ancestry feat! Let's do Celestial Mercy, which will let us cast the cleanse affliction spell twice a day. Minor poisons and diseases, begone! (Lemuen doesn't have healing arts or anything, but big sister powers make any care she gives magical in its own way.)

Level 14 is another even level, so skill feat and class feat! There's a feat called Headshot. Need I say more? No, but I will at least explain that it has a chance to instantly kill the target! Assuming you crit, and they fail a save, and you already shot them once before, and that they're not higher level than you... look, sometimes you just take a feat because it's cool.

Level 15 is a doozy! This one lets us increase our stats yet again, which means preparing to increase both Dexterity and Charisma at level 20, and actually increasing two other stats; it might be a good time to actually get some Constitution...

Besides that, we get the customary general feat and skill increase, an increase to the flat damage from level 7, and the last Way of the Sniper ability, which is a special kind of shot that applies that damage bonus from all the way at level 1 to any attack, not just the first in a fight.

End Game (16-20)

Final stretch! Level 16 is another skill feat and the Fatal Bullet class feat, meaning that our critical hits with our arquebus deal yet another d12 of damage.

Level 17 lets us ignore any penalties for firing up to three times our base range, making that range effectively 450 feet, which might as well be range: "yes". It also gets us a skill increase and the final ancestry feat, for which we take our real S3: Divine Declaration. It lets us cast the divine decree spell, which can best be described as 'Angelfireball', or a massive explosion of holy damage that can weaken creatures and even banish beings back to the planes from whence they came.

Level 18 means a skill feat and a class feat, so let's take Piercing Critical, which means rolls of a natural 19 are also automatic crits. The level curve has caugh up to your gun skills by this point, so extra chances to crit the boss always help.

Level 19 is the final skill increase and general feat, and also increases our armor class proficiency to Master! Better late than never.

And finally, level 20! One last skill feat! One last boost to our stats to max out Dex, put Cha as high as we could, and shore up whatever other stats we want! And one last feat in the form of Perfect Readiness, which gives us an extra action every single turn to reload or reposition! Whew... what a trip.

Roundup

So, here at the end, let's take a long look at what we have and if we've hit our goals. We do have pretty good analogues for all of Lemuen's main skills, although S1 is a bit more finnicky than I would have liked. We even have a decent analogue to her first talent with all the Sniping Duo feats! And well, I'd say this all fits pretty well into the 'badass with a sniper' category, so I'm happy, thematically. What about gameplay?

Here's our pros: we are absurdly good with guns, which comes naturally as a Gunslinger. We're ahead of the curve for most of those levels and we have ways to make our shots even more likely to crit. By the end, our shots will be dealing 4d8+1d6+8 damage, which is nuts enough for a ranged weapon without even getting into the 6d12+2d6+16 damage we do on crits, or all the extra bits of damage certain kinds of shot can tack on. We also do all that at positively absurd ranges if needed, going up to 150 feet even from level 1. We even have decent area damage, though a little limited.

However, we do have a fair few cons too: namely, low Con and only passable AC means we really need that range because we do not want to be close to the fight. Enemies can shred you like confetti, and you're extremely easy to grab. In addition, the sheer amount of different kinds of attack we accumulate is great... but only if you can keep up and manage them properly. It's hard to know which of the upwards of six or seven ways you have to shoot your gun is best to use in the moment.

So that's it! This post was one hell of a thing to write up, but I had tons of fun. If people have any thoughts, leave them in the comments or message me about 'em! I love both these games to death and would love to do more of these. Who should be next? Or should we just spring for Lemuen in Starfinder instead? The full release of SF2e is just around the corner...

[sootchild]

[dailycharacteroption]

Starwright (Starfinder Archetype)

(art by 5ofnovember on DevaintArt)

One of the things that Starfinder was happy to take forward into the future setting was the seven starmetals, a group of poorly-understood materials used by magical smiths to make all sorts of wondrous weapons, armor, and equipment.

Now, while these ancient smiths were able to create great works with these materials, there was still a lot to understand and discover about them. It only makes sense then that in the far future of Starfinder, such technology and understanding has only improved, bringing a greater understanding of why these materials have the properties they do.

This has resulted in some serious innovations, and it is a general assumption that individual components in various technologies both material and hybrid incorporate starmetals in various ways. Inubrix components that can pass through steel components for otherwise impossible movements, cold siccatite heat sinks, horicalcum components that help regulate or accelerate the speed of nearby parts, and so on.

The Starforge on Absalom Station is at the forefront of starmetal research and fabrication, and its students are master metallurgists that are well-versed in the properties of these materials, and even if they leave their forges and workshops to go adventuring, they bring that skill with them wherever they go!

And that’s where we get the Starwright archetype, representing the skill of working with these exotic materials and applying their benefits to the gear of their allies!

Starwrights carry with them a toolkit containing small samples of all starmetals except adamantine, as well at the tools to manipulate them. Each day, they can craft a delicate addition to swap into the parts of a suit of armor, weapon, vehicle, or other piece of technological or hybrid equipment, applying the advantages to the affected target for an entire day before the component wears out and has to be removed, melted down, and made ready to reuse the next day.

For armor, an abysium core can reduce the energy cost of any upgrades with battery charges, djezet recepticals can bolster the magic of the wearer and synergize with existing djezet, horacalcum plating wards against time magic, inubrix resonators can briefly give the user’s whole body the ability to pass through metal, noqual coating wards against hostile magic, and siccatite can ward against extreme heat or cold depending on which is used.

Hybrid and tech items can use abysium cores to partially power themselves, djezet bolsters hybrid items and infuses pure tech items with magic, horacalcum can slowly tick back the clock on damage, repairing the item, noqual makes them resistant to magic, and siccatite gives the item immunity to fire or cold.

Enhanced vehicles include abysium-powered environmental reactors to protect the vehicle and passengers, djezet-guided magical autopilot and guidance, horacalcum-based speed boosters, inubrix internal parts making them easier to control, noqual plating for anti-magic, and siccatite heat sinks or warmers to protect both vehicle and passenger from extreme heat and cold.

Finally, weapons get surprisingly the fewest options. Abysium, horacalcum, noqual, and siccatite all either make the weapon count as being made with that material or bolster the effects that said materials normally grant.

Being able to add a buff to your and allied equipment is fun, though it is a pity that it can only be done once per day. While you don’t have to, the theme of the archetype practically begs to be paired with a crafting build so you can maximize your engineering skill and pump out various more permanent starmetal-enhanced items for the party. Mechanics and technomancers are an obvious choice here, as are other mages, but I can also see biohackers eager to test the effects of starmetals on living subjects, envoys that picked up a few tricks, military engineers in the form of soldiers, operatives, vanguards and the like rigging up temporary boosts, and more.

Fantasy metals have been a staple of the genre for a very long time, whether they are truly magical in nature or just titanium for a people that never called it that. The starwright, and by extension the starfinder setting in general, provides a unique opportunity to explore the properties of those exotic metals on a tech level approaching modern knowledge of metallurgy and beyond. With that in mind, if your own setting has its own exotic materials, you might consider a homebrew expansion for this archetype that works with them, bring out even more effects.

Brought on for his expertise in recognizing starmetal deposits by the way that life reacts and evolves around them, the neskinti scientist and xenodruid Bulfaas joined the expedition to Anox-IV. However, now that the corporation has decided to ignore his advice and plans to strip mine the entire deposit, wiping out an entire ecosystem in the process, he is forced to turn to the party, a group hired originally for security and supplementary science team, with the hopes their conscience will win out.

The science station Red Excelsior has many different samples from across the systems, including a treasure trove of starmetal ingots reserved for testing. This tempting target had drawn in a group of daring pirates eager to make off with the whole thing, and they have a plan to release hobgars, a form of electrically-empowered simian, free from the biodeck to create a distraction while they make for the vault.

While the bullets themselves were mundane, examining the footage of the assassination reveals that the senator was gunned down by a weapon with horacalcum components, causing chronal distortions on impact. Finding the perpetrator will be difficult, for they are a skilled starmetal forger, and have already smelted down the components in the murder weapon to throw off suspicion.

[officialpaizo]

Even with odds at 45%, Iseph always gets the job done. Read about our Starfinder iconic operative in today's blog!

[toghrahkunok]

Come play the Starfinder 2nd Edition Playtest!

We have:

The Twitch Streamer (Envoy)

With abilities such as

- "mods, kill that guy"

- networking

- diss track

- The leader, the plan guy, the silver-tongued schemer that may or may not have shot first

The Power of Friendship (Mystic)

With abilities such as

- no literally a direct quote from the class is "You defeat your foes with the power of friendship and overwhelming firepower."

- psychic life bond between all of your mutuals

- the universe has a soundtrack and by god you're hijacking the aux cord

- A tremendously powerful spellcaster that forges metaphysical connections with their friends and the universe at large

Bond Name's the james (Operative)

With abilities such as

- what the fuck why are you so good at killing people

- there's literally a feat called 360 No-Scope

- shoot the gun right out of their hand, or the grenade right out of the air

- A tactical, deadly class that's better with gun than you are at breathing

Space Magic Bullshit Knight (Solarian)

With abilities such as

- zero-waste usage of every stage of a star's life cycle

- destiny 2 supers/overwatch ultimate abilities (supernova go brrr)

- at-will wormholes my beloved

- An in-your-face fighter that wields light and gravity to mulch things like their stellar inspirations do

Tea-For-Two Heavy Weapons Guy (Soldier)

With abilities such as

- you are heavy weapons guy

- more of a mobile artillery platform than a rifleman

- 410,757,864,530 expended shell casings

- The closet thing you can get to playing an anthropomorphized tank, with insanely bulky armor and a specialty with the heaviest weapons in the game

The... uh, the. wait. hang on. The- (Witchwarper)

- YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST

- YOUR MERE PRESENCE HERE STANDS AGAINST THE VERY FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE

- (you can aquire an ability that straight-up removes an entity from reality)

- A class of impossibility within quantum fluctuations, you exist via a Paradox of varying implication and thus must also have an Anchor to the world

[avatarskywalker78]

OC Re-introduction - Sheridan Ó Séaghdha

Ever since she was a young girl, Sheridan was interested in two things - flying and space, and ideally something that combined the two, and was often found with her head in a book or watching a documentary. She was still a fairly social person - upbeat, friendly, willing to listen to people, but she had her heart set on becoming not just a pilot but an astronaut to boot, and so she worked hard to get the grades needed, passing high school with flying colours and landing a scholarship at Harvard University, where she chose to study advanced physics and mathematics.

It was here she first met John Tracy and the two of them soon hit it off, bonding over their shared love of astronomy and quickly becoming firm friends. It's a friendship confusing to some people because they're very different personality wise, but beneath the surface it's clear this is a meaningful relationship, and Sheridan considers her life brighter having him in it. They even shared an apartment during Sheridan's second year before John graduated, and it wasn't long before she got to know his brothers too, becoming close to Gordon in particular due to their shared chaotic streak (and the only thing more concerning than them actively plotting is when they're both quiet).

After her own graduation and training, she joined Mercury Aerospace because they're one of the few companies who actually take safety seriously in the 2060s, and even though the work can be dangerous she also knows everything is done behind the scenes to make sure it isn't life-threatening when it doesn't have to be. It was here she first met Tia Everton, a freelance mechanical engineer, when she helped developed one of their test crafts, and the two have been friends ever since.

These are the fundamentals. How it plays out?

Well, that depends on the universe you're in ↓

The Original Series

Mercury Aerospace has been developing the Starfinder Programme for years and Sheridan's been testing out it's first craft, Starfinder One - the aim to not only venture into commercial spaceflight but to get people interested in STEM, and the ship's central part has a fully operational (and modified) observation dome where people can get a proper look at the stars without being hampered by pollution. So far all the test flights have been successful and she's looking forward to being one of the co-pilots on it's maiden flight.

The last few years haven't exactly been easy, though - first she almost lost one of her best friends to a horrific hydrofoil accident, then the exploits of International Rescue highlighted the massive safety gaps a lot of companies have (something that never fails to infuriate her) alongside people's general stupidity, and even she's had several near-misses over the course of her career. John's also become increasingly anxious over her job, much as he tries to be outwardly supportive, and she doesn't get as much time to talk it out with him as she'd like, especially since he seems to have his own project going on he won't tell her about. Despite this, he's pleased for her when he finds out about Starfinder One, and Sheridan's certain it'll go well and propel her onto a career in spaceflight, the thing she's always wanted. And the flight itself does go fine - an hour and a half in orbit and everything runs smoothly...

But on re-entry disaster strikes when two of the main engines explode and the back-up engines start slowly losing power, sending the ship plummeting towards Earth and threatening the lives of the crew and the thirty-five passengers on board. Unable to reach ground control she tries another frequency to call International Rescue - and gets the shock of her life when John Tracy is the one who answers, compounded when Thunderbird One re-establishes communications and Thunderbird Two arrives to do an on-board repair as she realises the Tracys are International Rescue, and that this is why they're so well-adjusted despite spending most of their time on a remote island (sure, she figured they must be doing something, but she didn't predict this).

The day is saved, of course, but Sheridan certainly has a lot of questions for her friend afterwards once she's signed the NDAs - and a lot more worry, now she knows almost all her friends face dangerous situations on the regular.

Thunderbirds Are Go

With Mercury Aerospace having been in the space flight business for over ten years, Sheridan got the chance to test spacecraft a lot sooner, and her time is split between Earth and space in the process, and has also been an active crewmember on several space missions because of her skillset. She's even been on a couple of deep-space missions, which she's pretty proud of - yet she always loves coming back down to Earth, likes to feel the ground beneath her feet and see her friends again, even if only for a few days at a time between her job at Mercury and their jobs at International Rescue.

Though it's been years since the secret was officially revealed, Sheridan worked it out pretty early on after suspicious absences on John's part that just happened to correlate with some disaster happening and International Rescue being called out, cluing her in to the fact that their eye in the sky couldn't be anyone else - and therefore the pilots had to be his brothers. She never admitted this and once it was officially announced didn't see any need to let on, but of course she knew, and she's been worried ever since - they all went through so much before joining the organisation and she's terrified of losing one of them on a rescue, especially given the amount of close calls they've had recently.

Of course, her career path isn't exactly a safe one. The Starfinder programme was targeted when it was in development, and five years ago the exploration craft Starfinder One was sabotaged on it's re-entry into the atmosphere and it was only the combined efforts of the pilots and the engineering crew that they were able to get it down safely, (though International Rescue was on standby in case assistance was needed). The group responsible were caught alarmingly quickly by the GDF and given lengthy sentences - she knows perfectly well who helped bring them down - and since then the programme has gone from strength to strength, but it served as a reminder that it's not just safety issues that can be a danger. Currently, Sheridan's on Starfinder Four, six months into a mission exploring part of the outer solar system using a proton engine and an experimental power core and so far it's been successful.

Then the unpredictability of space strikes - an unexpected meteor shower knocks out most of the system and causes two sections of the ship to decompress. Sheridan manages to call International Rescue (Gordon the one to answer), but the comm systems on the ropes and she and another crewmember are gonna have to race to stabilise the core otherwise there won't be anyone to rescue because the resulting explosion will vaporise the ship and everyone on it. She doesn't doubt that they'll get there in time...

This might just be the closest call yet.

Tagging (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @shrinkthisviolet @starstruckpurpledragon @janetm74 @call-me-casual @lenle-g