Step 1: Character Concept
What kind of hero do you want to be? A rough smuggler with a heart of gold, a technomage with powerful equipment boosted by magic, a charming negotiator, or a stealthy assassin? The possibilities are endless, but it helps to form at least the basic idea early on.
Start by deciding the general idea of your character's personality, the broad lines of their past, and why they adventure. These concepts will be expanded on, or completely changed later on, but they will give you some point of reference.
Decide what you want your character to be good at, what they are like. Do you want to play a hulking lizard-creature with an enormous laser rifle? Then a vesk soldier with the mercenary theme is a perfect choice. If a scrappy bipedal rat who likes to burgle is more your style, a ysoki operative with the outlaw theme could be the way to go.
Step 2: Choose a Species
Your character's species is one of their most visible and telling characteristics. Would you like to be an enigmatic liberated Android, a traditionalist four armed Kasatha, or a mutated insectoid Shirren?
Your character's species is more than fluff though. It grants you certain abilities and languages as well as modifications to your ability scores. Lastly, your race gives you a number of starting HP, but only at first level.
All available species can be seen
Alternatively, the table below will allow you to see all species side-by-side along with their ability modifiers, in case you have a class in mind. It includes any possible alternate species ability scores as well for the greatest ease of access. Alternatively, you can roll on the table below if you would prefer. Lastly, you can sort the table by any of the columns in case you are wanting specific ability score bonuses. For example, if you sort by descending Strength, you will see that Dragonkin are brought to the top with their +4 bonus to Strength, or sorting by Hit Points brings Trox with their impressive 8 starting hit points to the top.
Step 3: Theme
Next, you can choose a theme for your character, which represents a core aspect of their background and motivations. A theme can help express your character’s approach to adventuring—weather they are a bounty hunter, a scholar, or the embodiment of another classic adventuring trope. In addition to reflecting a certain background, a theme provides benefits to an appropriate skill or skills at 1st level and also grants 1 extra point to a specific ability score.
The themes are listed below.
Step 4: Class
Choose which class you want to play. From the tough and dangerous soldier, to the stealthy operative or the diplomatic envoy, each class has its own strengths and each brings something different to the party.
Your class will tell you what ability scores are important. A Solarian requires Charisma, and perhaps Strength, while a Technomancer is better off with Intelligence and Dexterity. Your class also gives you access to certain powers and abilities that will help you on your adventures.
| Name |
Key Ability Scores |
| Biohacker |
Intelligence or Wisdom |
| Envoy |
Charisma |
| Evolutionist |
Strength or Dexterity |
| Magneticist |
Wisdom |
| Mechanic |
Intelligence |
| Mystic |
Wisdom |
| Nanocyte |
Constitution |
| Operative |
Dexterity |
| Precog |
Dexterity |
| Solarian |
Charisma |
| Soldier |
Strength or Dexterity |
| Technomancer |
Intelligence |
| Vanguard |
Constitution |
| Witchwarper |
Charisma |
Step 5: Ability Scores
Now that you’ve made the most important decisions about your character, it’s time to fill in their statistics. Your character’s ability scores determine a wide array of their capabilities and consist of six values: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
There are three ways to calculate starting Ability scores. Point buy, Array, or rolling
The Standard way to decide starting ability score is the point buy version.
In this method, you customize your ability scores by “buying” them using a pool of points. Since the purpose of this system is to help you build exactly the character you want, before starting to customize your ability scores, first decide what you want your character’s race, class and
theme to be. Once you’ve got those firmly in mind, follow the steps below in order.
Step 1: Start with a score of 10 in each ability. On your character sheet or a piece of scratch paper, write down all six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma—and put a 10 next to each of them.
Step 2: Add and subtract points for race. Races in Starfinder are often naturally gifted in some abilities and less so in others. Each race entry lists these advantages and disadvantages in terms of points you add or subtract from specific starting ability scores. For instance, a shirren starts out with +2 points in Constitution and +2 points in Wisdom, but –2 points in Charisma Some races, like humans, are so versatile as a race that they get points they can put in any single ability. Once you know your racial modifiers, add or subtract those points from your starting scores of 10.
Step 3: Add points for theme. Each theme gives you a single ability point to apply to an ability score. For instance, choosing the ace pilot theme gives you +1 point in Dexterity, while the themeless option lets you apply an extra point to any ability score you choose. The points granted by each theme can be found in its description. Once you know your theme, add that point to the designated ability.
Step 4: Spend 10 points customizing your scores. Now that you’ve got your baseline scores, which incorporate modifications for class and theme, you get a pool of 10 extra points to assign to your ability scores as you see fit. You apply these to your existing ability scores on a 1-for-1 basis—if you have a Dexterity score of 12 and you add a point from your pool, you now have a Dexterity score of 13. You can divide these points up however you want, but you can’t make any individual score higher than 18. (Later on, as you level up and gain ability-boosting gear, your ability scores may rise above 18, but 18 is the highest value any character can start out with.) Be sure to spend all 10 of your
ability points—you can’t save them for later.
Please be aware that you cannot lower ability scores to gain extra build points. You can lower ability scores voluntarily if you feel that would better fit your character, but you don't get anything back for that.
Step 6: Assign Skill Ranks and Choose Feat
Next, figure out what skills you want your character to be good at, whether it’s using technology or surviving in the wilderness. At each level, she gains skill ranks, representing their growing know-how and training. The number of ranks she gains at each level equals their Intelligence modifier + an amount determined by their class (but she always gains at least 1), and you can allocate the ranks to any skills you want. Some skills are called out as class skills in your class entry—these are skills tied to your class, and you automatically get a +3 bonus if you put a skill rank into them. (You can still put ranks into skills that aren’t class skills; you just don’t get the special +3 bonus when you do.)
Once you’ve assigned your character’s skill ranks, choose their feats. Most characters begin play with one feat, though humans gain a racial bonus feat. Feats are a good way to boost an element of your character that might be lacking. For example, Toughness grants extra Stamina Points, while Bodyguard lets you protect nearby allies from attacks.
Step 7: Buy Equipment
At 1st level, your character has 1,000 credits to spend on armor, weapons, and other supplies Armor and weapons are often the most important—keep in mind that your character’s class determines the types of weapons and armor that she is proficient with. Your character’s weapon determines the damage she can deal in combat, while armor affects their Energy Armor Class (EAC) and Kinetic Armor Class (KAC). Additionally, there are other staples that can help your character during play.
Step 8: The Rest
Now add the following details to your character sheet.
Home World
This is where your character was born and raised, not necessarily the world your race is naturally from.
Alignment
This is how you view the world, whether through a lens of goodness and law, or through one of chaos and evil, or anything in between.
Deity
This is the deity your character follows. While a vast majority of intelligent people follow a deity, there is no need for your character to do so (Unless they are a mystic).
Languages
These are the languages your character speaks. At an absolute minimum, you will speak Common, the language of your race, and the language of your home world. You gain an additional language of your choice for each rank you put into the Culture skill.
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