Episode: 2743
Title: HPR2743: Character build in the d20 system
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2743/hpr2743.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 16:16:37

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This is HBR episode 2743 entitled Chuck to build in the D20 system and is part of the series
information underground. It is hosted by Klaatu and is about 66 minutes long and carrying a clean flag.
The summary is Klaatu and Lost in Rock's Builder RPG character in the D20 system on Starfinder.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by an honest host.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15. That's HBR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at An Honesthost.com.
Hey everybody, this is Klaatu and with me is...
Hi, this is Lost in Bronze.
And we are going to walk through character creation of an RPG character. The idea is to convey
the generic process of building an RPG character, but of course every game is unique.
And so it just so happens that the rule system we're going to be using is Starfinder based on...
I would say Starfinder actually is pretty loosely based on D&D 3.5. It has strayed quite a bit
from I think what traditionally we would think of as Dungeons and Dragons 3.5.
That's the general concept and I think that by hearing us do this it might help other people
who've never built a character figure it out. So the first place where we're starting is page 14
on the Starfinder rulebook. And it depends on what rulebook you're using obviously as to what
page your character creation guide starts. I think the D&D 5th edition is page 11 or something like
that. So it's usually pretty close to the beginning and we'll start at step one. So Lost in
Rock City you considered what your... the Starfinder says to consider your character concept,
which I feel in old school D&D you actually rolled first and then came up with your concept after
you saw what you had. But in this they're trying to say come up with a concept first and then
build your character based on that. Do you have a rough idea of what you want to build?
First off you're not you're not kidding when you say that this is loosely based on D&D. I mean you
can see the antecedents. You can definitely see that this is a descendant game but yeah a character
concept is something that was essentially the last step you came up with or it was one that you
formed as you went along. And because so much of the original way you did it was based on chance
because you were always rolling dice for your stats and then you had to decide how you know
depending on how strict the die rolling that the GM composed what the rules that the GM
imposed how strict they were you may or may not have had the choice of character class that you
wanted let alone the type of character. So this is very different very different but if I had
to choose something for this game because it is a science fiction game a space opera game I would
like to create a pilot or something like a pilot and probably human because it's my first character
in this game and I want to hit the ground running I don't want to have to negotiate different racial
characteristics just yet. Sure that sounds good. So in the book step one is to create a character
concept which is which is nice and I feel like it's a little bit backwards because I think what we
are generally used to as I guess in old school D&D is to actually roll your your ability scores first
and in fact I'm going to propose to you lost in Bronx that we we do indeed do that first
that we roll your ability scores first because those are the base level that's what everything
else is going to build on would you agree. I would agree I mean first off it's what I'm used to
but secondly just by the way the rules and the rule book itself is laid out there's an awful lot
of reference to your ability scores and adding bonuses when you don't even have any ability scores
yet and it does seem to be a little cart before the horse in that regard. So yeah why don't we do
that why don't we do that. Yeah okay I mean you're using pen and paper too. Yes the traditional method
I think a lot of modern players are probably going to be using like apps on their cell phones
and things like that so maybe that was part of the expectation but they give us three options two
or three options to to do ability scores you can either take a pre pre fab sort of like
a lot of averages array of numbers or you can actually roll die. I can't imagine what you're going
to choose here but what would you like to do. I think I'd like to roll some dice I mean why not.
What a shocker. I know I mean it's a it's an RPG why not. It is it is and I like to
leave at least some of this up to chance so okay so let's I am using a a dice rolling
application on an electronic device I have because I don't actually own a set of dice anymore.
I used to have plenty I don't anymore so I'm going to first off number of sides which would be six
and number of dice which would be three I assume or do we want to do four and drop biggest I
can't do that with this. I always I've always done four and dropped the the larger but I mean if
you want to play it three and just take what you get I'm fine with that. That's how I used to play
I used to play um your role three six sided dice for each stat in a row and then decide what
you can make with that yeah that's why I always played now this entire system is not designed to
run it that way and I'm not sure I'd be able to do that so all I'm going to do is get the numbers
and then I'll decide where I'm going to put them I wouldn't normally do that but I will
for this particular system because it does seem to expect you to completely handcraft the character
as opposed to letting chance create the character so first roll six I have a seven it's not great
but better I have a 13 that's kind of nice I have a seven again another 13 how about that two
three four five one more roll I have a 14 that's my high so you've got an array of five numbers correct
uh sorry six numbers six numbers I have a I have an array of six numbers yeah do you want to assign
those now or do you want to start out and figure out like what would be smart if you have a I guess
this is where the character concept comes in we'll just kind of really quickly peak at what this the
pilot and human do and it looks like just kind of reading it over it looks like probably and you
could probably have guessed this dexterity is probably going to be your key ability like the one
that you really want to invest in so like that that 14 is probably what you would want to put that
yeah I would think so all right all right score there 14 okay and I did say human and humans
get a bonus as well I believe yeah they're versatile they're just because they're human this is
actually step two is choose a race so we might as well do that and it looks like on this particular
rulebook the humans are on page was it 45 and yeah it looks like they get a plus two to any one
ability so that's pretty good you can put that into something and if we're talking about dexterity
being important why not put it there cool so we'll do plus two there all right so that was my 14
let's see be nice to take care of myself in a fight so we're gonna put a 13 there and maybe a 13
in constitution probably smart oh no I actually I think intelligence or maybe wisdom I don't think
you're gonna need wisdom all that much as a human pilot maybe not but it helps when it comes to
saving throws that is true I think I'm going to put my 13 there for that reason this is kind of
your min-maxing type of mentality going on here and I generally I used to laugh at people that
would do that but they're there's sometimes some real statistical advantages to it so yeah let's
see constitution we'll put a seven there and we'll put a seven in intelligence and our lowest
number in charisma as it should be so there we are okay what is that a six in charisma is that
what that is a six in charisma yeah cool missing teeth I assume by my reckoning of 13 in strength
which is a plus one modifier because everything's based on two numbers above 10 so you've got one
modifier there 14 in decks for a two modifier okay seven in constitution for a minus two modifier
you're gonna want to fix that probably seven in intelligence for a minus two wisdom 13 for a one
modifier and a charisma and six for a negative two modifier okay and those modifiers of course
I know you know this but we're gonna say it for the audience is what they would is what you're
going to add when you roll a die again based on those abilities you'll you'll add that modifier
to your role or subtract in the case of the negative numbers so and by rolling against a statistic we
would roll a die and hope to match or exceed I believe the number no you're thinking of old school
D&D okay well you'll be rolling you'll be rolling against something trying to think of an example
you're trying to impress someone you'll roll die and then you will to whatever you rolled let's say
you roll a 12 you would add your modifier to that so that would be a negative two for your charisma
so now you're you've just rolled a 10 effectively and okay your success is based on the dc of
whatever you were trying to achieve the dc okay and the dc is difficulty challenge is it if you're
get difficult sound dc it's just difficulty class difficulty something yeah difficulty what
call it just difficulty yeah for the time being okay so that and that score is based on the
difficulty of that particular challenge and it might be determined by someone else's score maybe
their intelligence or something like that yeah or the the general difficulty of the situation as
determined by the game master so yeah yeah so yeah okay just trying to try to keep it clear all right
so I have my ability squares and I have my modifiers chosen your race did we did we get everything
under the human did we get everything oh well you know what you ought to do is go ahead and jot down
that you have four hp for your human okay there'll be more later but but you should at least jot
down the four that you get okay I have four hp um also humans get plus one to that their ability
score I had a dex of 14 I wanted to put my plus one into dex to make it a 15 but that would go
into a lot of plus two it's a plus two actually I thought it was no is it a plus two for being human
yeah it says plus two to any one ability so that's that that's my plus two that I have under dex or
is that plus two modifier due to it being a 14 that's the the two there is because it is a 14 so
you're going to want to bump that 14 up to 16 to 16 and yeah and then make that modifier a three
okay that's pretty good I mean yeah I have some negatives but that's a nice that's a nice score
come on that okay I mean that's a great I mean plus three to any role that you do on dex I mean
that's gonna really really make piloting you know I mean that's gonna make you a capable pilot for sure
yeah I would think so I would hope so I think my scores are set now and then we should also
remember that you you're gonna get when it comes around to choosing these you're gonna get a
bonus feet at first level and you are also going to choose one more skill rank those are in the
future so we'll just have to kind of remember that those are benefits that you get made a note of
as have I so neither of us will forget to do that at the end okay so the third step according to
the rule book is to choose a theme and themes are I think of them a little bit like they're not
exactly they're a little bit like kits in the old dnd stuff I forget what edition that was I
feel like it was second edition where they kind of had preset skill sets that you could choose and
if you look on page 15 of your rule book you'll see a summary of all the different themes and
one of them is ace pilot but there are others that you could look at if you want now I think um
I think we want ace pilot for sure you know I mean it makes sense that's kind of you know I'm after
pilot let's go with ace pilots so my theme will be ace pilot I like that that's what I'm asking so
ace pilot it says it's on page 29 and this should just tell us some benefits that you get well
it looks like it looks like you get one plus one to a dex for being an ace pilot okay now we're up
to 17 okay so does this 17 change my modifier it does not because modifiers only change every
other boost but it does say that you have all right that one of the benefits of being an ace pilot
is that any DC on culture checks in in relation to starships and vehicles and things like that you
get to treat as if though they were five less than they actually are so if you're rolling against
a culture check then whatever the GM says the DC is then you need to remind the GM a take five
off of that because I just have a lot more knowledge about these things okay and would it
that go under abilities or skills or yeah strangely there's not really a place for that I'll
market under skill since culture is a skill oh yeah that's a good idea piloting is a class skill
so that just means that on the character sheet just to the to the left of each to the big list
of all the skills that you could possibly have you should put a little tick mark or fill in a box
or whatever you're looking at to denote that piloting is something that basically I think of it as
you have training in it that's kind of how I feel about that and what that means mechanically is
that whenever you roll on piloting because it is a class skill as long as you take at least one
rank in this skill you'll get a plus three bonus to whatever you roll okay which I mean that's
insane because you've got dexterity plus three and you got piloting plus three plus six on your
roles I think you're gonna be a pretty solid pilot yeah that's I mean at least on when it comes
to dice yeah see if I make the right choices when it comes to gaming right yeah that's cool so I
think that's that's your theme you got everything yeah all right next up choose a class now it's
kind of weird because you might think well piloting is my class but actually piloting is more like
I guess guess it's sort of a specialization whereas your class is I I would say maybe it's more
like your job would you agree with that sort of summary I'll go with that summer because I don't
see a point to having those two things separated myself so yeah let's go with your explanation I
like it cool sounds good so classes they're again summarized on page 15 just under the themes in
the big blue box um-hmm envoy mechanic mystic operatives salary and soldier and technomancer
and it has appeal to you yes I think I will go with mechanic if I'm gonna fly a ship I want to
be able to fix it too that's actually a really good yeah that's a good policy so we'll switch over
to page 68 on the rulebook and look at the mechanic class right at the top of the page there you
get six stamina points plus your constitution modifier okay bad news for you because your
constitution modifier is a negative two so you get four okay hit four stamina points okay so
I have four stamina points that's not bad well could be better but it's not bad yeah well good news
is you also get six extra hit point and you already had four for being human so now you got a 10
10 total that's not bad that is not bad yeah old school dnd you had to old school dnd you had to
be a fighter and you had to um you had you had to roll high and you had to have a good constitution
to get 10 10 points at first levels so yeah yeah and so the the difference between stamina points
and hit points too is that stamina points they're a little bit more resilient because I mean they
act just like hit points when people hit you you lose a stamina point but those are refreshed
really fairly easily that they you just take a 10 minute rest and you get your stamina points back
whereas hit points takes a much longer time to restore so yeah that's kind of the advantage to
stamina the way I mechanically yeah yeah um the way I kind of interpreted it reading the rules is
you get into a fight and someone punches you in the face um and it stuns you and you take a little
damage from that but you shake it off in you know just a minute or two and you're up and running
again whereas the normal hit points do not come back that fast you know yeah exactly and so it's
it's a way of I guess of expressing stun in a way and I it's a pretty good idea because you could
easily die from getting punched in the face in the old game which seemed a little extreme so well
I think you were saying in a in an episode I forget where I heard you say it but I know I heard a
recording of you saying this but in in RPG and science fiction especially like it's really kind
of hard to approximate sort of realistic uh battles and so on because it's just like science fiction
I feel is a little bit more realistic to most of us than than fantasy because fantasy is such a
long time ago and there's so much magic in it science fiction you kind of almost want more realism
so I think the stamina thing is kind of nice because yeah as you say I don't I don't think I would
buy getting killed just by being hit but in the face possibly as much as I buy just being able to
shake that off well I mean if you wanted to be absolutely realistic when it came to uh tremendous
amounts of damage like say firearm damage no stamina points at all you just get shot and you die
because that's yeah how it happens and you're dead yeah but that's not a point that's still a
problem yeah that is not a fun yeah exactly yeah we used to do that occasionally the our our
game master would bring in firearms you know from time travel and whatever and you know the people
dropped like flies yeah that's a very different feel let's see so your key ability score it tells you
is your dexterity I think we already knew that is there a minimum on your your uh key ability scores
I wanted to be a pilot but I only had a six in that like I for whatever reason I had stuck my six in
no and I and I think that is probably why they save what why they were probably thinking oh let's
save the ability score from last because they want you to know going in what to put your best
ability into yeah so if you've chosen to be a mechanic pilot then they're telling you now hey you
should have a high dexterity so maybe that's why in their according to their logic ability made
more sense at the end of the scenario well you know actually from that standpoint that does make a
lot more sense to what doesn't make sense is asking you to add all these bonuses and when you don't
have any place to put them yeah two two things that don't exist that I had a little trouble with but
I mean yeah I mean logically speaking that does make sense if they're telling you at this point well
if you want to be a mechanic you really do want high decks and be like oh okay well that's the one
that I'll I'll put everything into yeah yeah I guess it's yeah I guess it's valid it's just very
alien to me yeah I guess it's feeling and I guess we could have just we we could have just
written down the numbers that they were telling us to write it into blank slots and then add
tend to each or and then roll for the abilities and and put that in there or something that's true
I guess we could have done a different yeah it's true and maybe the fact that I keep thinking in terms
of I got to roll my dice you know I got I got I got I have to roll for my stats altars the entire
production in my head you know the fact that I'm gonna have these numbers and I I have to have
I have to know what they are before I can start adding bonuses to them but maybe if
you aren't rolling anything at all it doesn't really matter and you can just put on doesn't matter
you know you can put a one a two a three whatever the bonus for decks might be and then oh I'm adding
10 to that okay I'll just add 10 to that now so okay okay I take back every rotten thing I said
about the way this is laid out okay so let's do your skills now so you get so there are things
called skill ranks in pathfinder and starfinder and that is when you invest a point in a number of
skills now there is a limit to how many ranks you can have in a skill based on your level so if
you're at first level you can only put one rank in each skill when you're level two then you can
add another rank in there and so on that's why the fact that you have certain skills that are class
skills is significant because those get a free plus three regardless of your level how many of
these points do I get to choose for skills you get four plus your intelligence modifier and what
is your intelligence armor lesson Bronx where here my intelligence is minus two so you get two skills
okay well I think one will be piloting that is a wise choice I already get plus three for
because it's a class skill because my clay correct my actually you know what though no actually
you have to have a rank in it in order to qualify well okay well I'm putting a rank into it now
I assume I can only do one per skill right one rank per skill is that which is okay so I have a
rank of one so I also so I get a plus three on that when it comes to rolling for difficult you know
against a DC or what is that what we're am I understanding that correctly okay do I get a bonus
simply for having a rank in it do I get another bonus point for that yes well you know what they're
not super clear about that I've always played it to be yes if you have one rank then you have one
rank in it and then if it's a class skill you happen to have another plus three so that to me is a
total of four okay now that the even the better news is of course that skills are dependent on your
abilities so if you're rolling against piloting you're not just rolling you're actually gonna have
effectively your plus what do we say four for this yes plus your plus three for being an attribute
that you have decks so you're gonna have a plus seven on your skill roles okay all right well that's
it's worth it I would think especially when I have severe minuses in other areas so and I would
think let's see if you want to if you want to excel at something I would almost maybe consider
putting in a rank into the wisdom based profession because you've got a good wisdom modifier you
know so you're not like throwing this out you know with a minus yeah my one question is what's
the profession I'm not exactly sure what that's gonna I'm trying to look up real quick here yeah
yeah yeah I was confused by that too because if it's 146 I think maybe if it's a if it's like
mechanic related stuff then that might actually that might actually be useful fashion you were
skilled in a specific job or creative art you know how to use the tools of your trade profession
is actually a number of separate skills you could have blah blah blah when you put a rank in
profession skill you must choose the ability score key to that skill charisma intelligence or wisdom
common wisdom based profession skills include bounty hunter cook counselor dock worker farmer gambler
general contractor herbalist maintenance worker maintenance worker could be good manager
yeah yeah it does say it shouldn't overlap with your existing skills and maintenance worker doesn't
directly although that's up to you it says you're the final arbiter so no I would say that was fine
all right so why don't we do that we'll take profession we'll make it I have to choose which
number or which I'm sorry which attribute I am going to put into which seems really weird right
you wouldn't think that no I guess well I don't know a mercenary charisma intelligence or
wisdom to be a mercenary and I get to choose which one that doesn't make a lot of sense to me but
I guess it's just a way of using up that last little slot if you don't have anything else I mean
it's working out for me right now I can choose something that'll actually have a bonus yeah
I mean I think the idea is that you you choose now what sort of thing you're gonna benefit in
during the game and as long as you've declared that now then if you tell me hey I'm gonna roll
to see if I can jury rig this engine back together and I'm gonna roll on my profession of the
you know mechanic or whatever then that's fair yeah all right so let's go with profession we'll do
that that was a good suggestion and it will be for wisdom and I will go with maintenance worker sounds
good so that's an effective plus five whenever you roll on that so that's not bad wow should I put
yeah I'll put that here not under all right it's a plus five that's that's just just to spell it
out that's the plus three because it is a class skill it's a plus one because your wisdom ability
and it's plus one because you just now put a rank into it so it's five okay well that's actually
very useful that's actually really good yeah so I can see why they did that too see see they're
knocking back all of my criticisms it's good that's good yeah it's good since we're running through
it's good to see how it's laid out absolutely why it's laid out the way it is but I I can tell you
it doesn't read this way I agree with you I agree with you you get more what do we get more stuff
as I get more as a mechanic you have proficiencies so you're proficient with light armor which means
that that's not never gonna slow you down or anything like that and you're proficient with
basic melee weapons grenades and small arms well arms very nice so I can use pistols and such
and I can throw grenades and I can hit people sticks very nice by being a mechanic at first
level you construct an artificial intelligence is sophisticated program of self motivated code
that you can access for help in a variety of endeavors this AI is the product of your own genius
far more advanced and complicated than any available for sale to consumers though it falls
short of being truly self-aware and only you know the secrets of its creation operation your AI
AI can take on one of two forms a drone or an exo cortex don't know what that is
we must pick one of these forms on taking your first level of mechanic and once this
choice is made it cannot be changed so these are your feats these are the feats that you get with
work I guess they're class features technically but I think they're feats so your artificial
intelligence can take the form of a physical drone that can follow you around and do stuff like a
little R2-D2 your exo cortex is basically a cyber jack in you know at the base of your skull
or something and it's basically a CPU for your for your brain it you can offload jobs onto it
and have it figure stuff out for you and as you gain levels your exo cortex will be able to do
you know more and cooler stuff like maybe it'll help you hack into stuff or whatever I think
I'll go with a drone so you think I should put this under feats probably I'm pretty sure that
these are considered feats yeah because they they have the notation ex that's an extraordinary
ability so I'm pretty sure that's a a feat technically speaking bypass you are skilled at getting
inside computer systems all also I can hack well that means that you get a yeah it looks like you
get a plus one bonus to computer skill checks now to me that says to put a rank I mean is that
how you're reading it to put a rank into your computer skill no not necessarily because again
it could be something that happens outside you know like you know all you can't go any further but
there is a computer display there can you know if you you know you're gonna have to try to get
through it and it's like oh okay well I have a little bit of knowledge because I'm a mechanic but
it doesn't necessarily mean that I've I've been trained in it I wouldn't necessarily think I get a
rank in it just as you say I have some training yeah okay so write that down somewhere though
like so that we yeah yeah I have that yeah okay this one computer skill checks and the last one
was custom rig you've created a customized toolkit and used to hack systems and items
custom rig why that really sounds like if you get that if that's something you automatically
have it really does sound like you should be an expert in computers it is a funny it's a funny
overlap like mechanic doesn't say to me computer expert but I guess in this world that's what it
means probably in this future time there are no machines virtually that aren't you guys yeah let's
see configured to take an upgrade slot on your armor or can be installed in cybernetica I want to
okay I have all this stuff but what's it do more information on I could put out an augmentation
all right well using this rig you always count is having the appropriate tool a basic kit for
any computers or engineering skill check you attempt that's not bad some mechanic tricks and drone
mods require the use of a custom rig in addition you can use your custom rig as mark one calm unit
finally if you have it well that's nice too if I don't have a if I don't specifically say I have
a calm I always have one because I have my rig so that's not bad yeah finally if you have a drone
you can use your custom rig to communicate over an encrypted channel with your drone issue
commenced with AI or directly controlled so I have you know a trained dog basically yeah that I
can control and you can go as far down the rabbit holes you want with the drone I mean probably not
right this moment no but I can 74 there are all kinds of you can basically build your own drone
they give you some they give you a chassis and you can choose whether it's a hover drone or a
stealth drone or a combat drone yeah pick options oh my goodness yeah has its own it's
easy and saving throws yeah you're sort of a ranger you're a computer ranger you know you have
your familiar level and they're gonna or your companion rather and they're gonna they're gonna act
on your turn yeah well that is not what I think of in terms of you know mechanic but there are
archetypes like that in various movies and stories and stuff yeah absolutely okay um that's
cool that's cool and you can theme it you can theme it anyway you want you know if you want it to be
like I said like an R2D2 or something then that can be what it is if you want it to be something
super cool and like a little tank then that could be what it is yeah it's really up yeah I'm
the as you say I won't worry about that right now I have it one more thing about the mechanic
uh and that is uh up at the top of page 69 first you get your class level is one so we go across
there yeah and you see that you have zero base attack bonus okay which just means that when you're
when you're in battle you don't get any special extras yet yeah you'll you'll get more as you level
up uh and then you also get a plus two on your fortitude and reflex saves and a plus zero on your
will saves so I guess we might as well go ahead and resolve your your saving throw uh voucher yeah
let's do that fortitude is your saving throw and it is based on your constitution yes automatically
you have a minus two on your fort saves the good news is that you have a plus two because of what we
just read so that cancels out the negative two from your constitution you got zero on your fortitude
okay but it's worth noting that because of course as you level up that will get better and better
my total is zero my base save is minus two no or is that my ability mod your yeah your base is two
which we just you just got just now and your mod okay mod modified is a negative two from your
ability score it's minus two and that's why you're 10 we don't have any miscellaneous
correct my total is zero okay all right reflex on the other hand is based on decks we know that
your decks is very good yes so your mod your your mod on that is two you get a plus two right now
for free for being a mechanic making your total reflex save a five five so I had my base save
is three right because I have a plus three on that your your modify is is three because that comes
from your ability score so your your mod that's right that's right yeah they're pretty consistent
with that one term that they're actually consistent with modified means okay you know your ability
modifier okay your base is a plus and base save is from this is a plus two from being a mechanic
so a total of five okay and will will is based on wisdom you have a pretty good modifier on that
if you'll recall you have one modifier on your wisdom yes yes you don't get anything on your will
say for being a mechanic but that still means that you've got a plus one to will in any time you
have to roll against that okay that's good and I think that's everything for your class class
is kind of a big one okay it's got a lot of a lot of fiddly bits sure does so next in the in the
rulebook is to quote finalize ability scores which of course is what we we skipped ahead on that
and did that at the very beginning yeah I think that's the basics yeah we're yeah I think you're
right yeah so we'll skip over that and then we'll go to step seven which is assign skill ranks and
choose feats so we kind of started this already when we saw that your class came with a certain
number of skills and so on but we both made a note to ourselves to remember that I think it was
because you were human you get a plus one on any skill an extra plus one yes and then also a plus
one a feat so we'll look at the feats in a minute but you want to assign another skill to yourself
oh I thought that plus one was the bonus to a skill that I've chosen not that I get an extra skill
oh okay or did I read that incorrectly no you could be right probably look it up let's see
says humans gain an additional skill rank at first level and each level thereafter so no you just
get a free you get a free rank to assign to any to anything to any skill so I could have another skill
or I could boost one that I already have so just in case you're keeping count that this means that
the ranks per level that you will whenever you level up you'll have three ranks that you can
assign to any to to your skills because you'll have you'll have technically four but then plus
your intelligence modifier which was negative two and then plus one for being human so that's
three every time you level up okay I think I will put one in computers yeah I think that's
actually a good idea because it it seems like that's kind of the way that you're going kind of
whether you like it or not the mechanic is a computer person yeah well I mean it seems they seem
to assume that you're going to have it I mean it's not explicit but that's a that's an impression
yeah so I mean it's not going to be a bad skill to have obviously in a you know
in a sci-fi universe it's not obviously yeah so right now as far as I can tell and correct me from
wrong I have piloting and that's of course my best skill I have profession specifically maintenance
worker and I have computers for the skill rank of one however computers are a last skill they are
a class skill so I get plus three on that correct correct so that's actually a it's a skill rank
of four but I get a plus three bonus on it is that how that works it would mean that you have a
skill rank of one in that yep and then plus three on top of that is that what you were saying so
that's four sets that's okay now by my math effectively that's going to be a plus two actually
because you're going to have to add your intelligence bonus to any role that you make on that that's
true which is a negative two but that's fine I mean that's just you know that'll that's a choice
you made well write it down yeah I'll just I'll put my total there so I'm a little confused about
my piloting I would think my piloting would be higher I I have seven for my piloting total on
your piloting is seven yeah it's plus three for being because it's plus four yeah yep yeah
I got a little slow and I didn't market tone that's almost a fifth like a first lot of
fifty percent chance but something really high it's like a 40 or 30 percent yeah 30 percent
chance right of succeeding something like that you know so I'll do a die roll and then yeah exactly
correct yeah now you need to choose a feet and I think our notes said that you get an extra
feet yeah so you're gonna have actually so how many feets do you get normally I wonder hold on
well the number of ranks blah blah blah I'm on 16 under assigned skill ranks and choose feets
and it says most characters begin play with one feet though humans gain a racial bonus feet so you're
starting with two feets okay now feets are listed and that's this is I mean feets I could be wrong but
oh I am wrong okay in pathfinder feets I think I again I could be wrong but I think it fills like
I don't know 25 percent of the book there's just so many feets I guess this is still a new system
so they haven't quite gone overboard yet but yeah so you have feets on page 152 there's a bunch
of different ones I don't think it would make sense really to go through all of them so I don't
want to kind of scan over them or something well I mean we know what kind of character I'm after so
yeah exactly now I could you know I could try to spread it out and may I mean just for people listening
there are different philosophies about when you have this many options and you know so many skills
and minor skills like a feat I guess would be a minor skill or a talent of some sort but when
you have all of these different things there are different approaches and one is to try to make a
character who's as adaptable to the situation as they possibly can that's a generalist and generally
they can try to do almost anything especially when they have so many options available when you're
done you have a character that if there's a fight they can fight pretty well if there's a
technical problem they can solve a technical problem if there's some specific thing like medical
or piloting or something they might be able to give it a shot but they're never an expert in anything
usually or if they are they're not as good as somebody else might be and the other approach is to
make a specialist who more or less centers around one particular thing and in my case it's piloting
and technology that's what I'm going for with this particular character he's not much good in
anything else but in those things he's really good so that's just so people understand when
we're talking about knowing what I'm after and what I'm trying to create with this character that's
that's my philosophy or my approach yeah and I think that's a it's worth thinking about you could
just go after one very specific thing or you could choose deliberately a feat that just makes
basically no sense for that character but maybe it's something that they've had practice in you know
in other areas of their life oh there's another page okay let's see maybe small arm proficiency
because I that said that's one of the things that I get yeah I have proficiency and basic
well I already have it though right I already have it I was gonna say it doesn't get better yet
what you do what you might want to do is no I don't think so I mean we could check what you might
prefer to do is do strike back which is it gives you a base attack bonus of plus one which means
that any melee attack that you make will have a plus one on it that would be sort of related I guess
I mean if you're going after something for combat in other words well some of these really seem
redundant though yeah totally weapon focus and weapon specialization and I think I think they're
here because like I like you said you know some people are building some some very specific character
and maybe they want to maybe they want us a feat you know to really boost something or they don't
have anything in this thing so they want a feat just to give them some bonus and something that
otherwise they just shouldn't really be able to do okay here's a couple of choices that it seemed
very interesting sky jockey piloting five ranks as a per rep was it do I have piloting five that's
a rank you do oh wait that's ranks yeah no you don't have five ranks okay essentially you're
gonna have to be yeah I can't get that that's not later effectively yeah okay well the next one
up skill synergy there are no prerequisites and you gain two new class skills or a plus two insight
bonus to those skills oh nice okay I wouldn't anybody take that everybody should take that you get two more
class two more skills honestly I think every yeah I would take it but you know so people are very
focused two more class skills I got my list of class skills right here so I can take engineering
and why not some medicine so I assume I have a skill rank of one in those now for a two bonus in
both because they both have a negative two ability modifier yes because they're both intelligent
spaced but since they're class skills you've taken a rank free plus three that you get so four
minus two is two on that I should mark down that this is my feet one feet yeah absolutely and I
think there is a space on the character and I got how many feats for being a defeat the number of
feats I get are based on my class or my I know I get a bonus for being human but or is it just
your level I think that all I would want to say about that right now is that you get one free
feet when you make a first level care all right so I think different classes get gain more feats
at different rates so but but it's a given that everyone's gonna start with at least one feet
and I have two because I'm human so you do have another to choose from that right I still have a
second one I still have a second one to choose from yeah so let me first write that down skill
synergy that seems overpower um I'm not complaining synergy as you as you yourself said at one point
I don't remember when but you said like a lot in this game is geared towards making sure that your
character stays alive and that's just modern RPG you know that's like that I'm the first one to
say that you know that's probably the most important thing you know um I I I had so many yeah
yes there's no reason not to well especially just as an aside in the old days there was this
perception that it was the game master's job to challenge you was your job you know he's gonna
present puzzles and he's gonna you know he or she or gonna present puzzles they're going to show you
you know an adventure that it's your job to get around it's not their job to keep you alive
and it's not their job to tell a story or any of that and that entire philosophy is altered as
it should have because in the old days you know it was very easy to create a system where it was
effectively impossible for your players to ever win to ever complete a challenge and I think
it I think this is an improvement I'm complaining of great deal I'm grumbling because I'm an old
man who grumbles but this is a tremendous improvement just for that reason alone here's here's
something um nope sorry never mind there's bunch of re preregos it's let's see I don't have that
all right that would be cool though pull the pin perform a disarm to activate a foe's grenade
so you know it's that famous movie bit where you know you're fighting the guy and you know he
knocks you down and he's like yeah and then you have the the rings and your fingers you know
yeah and he blows up you know like five grenades blow up two feet away from you and you're still
fine it has a it has a prerequisite it's fun we'll go with fleet increase your base speed
doesn't say by how much let's look that up in fleet on page 157 fleet top of top right hand
faster than most benefit layering lighter no armor yeah and speeding this is by 10 is pretty good
because I have a and I believe humans start at 30 right yeah movement in position page 255 speed
yeah your speed is I mean I know it starts at 30 feet yeah creatures lands I'm just always
curious as to where they actually yeah looks like medium creatures have a land speed of 30 feet
yeah six square right so I have 40 feet cool so you've got you've got speed 40 feet yeah yeah if
I'm wearing no or light armor and I have a proficiency in light armor so yeah it's always good
because I mean not all depends on what you're fighting but a lot of your enemies are going to be
30 feet speed so it's nice to have that 10 foot advantage on on their movement okay so that's
pretty good for some reason they have buying equipment next I want to kind of before we do that
I feel like it makes more sense for us to resolve the resolve points and that's step nine under
finishing details but I figure let's go ahead and get the resolve points out of the way so
it says your character can use resolve points for important purposes including replenishing your
stamina points you spend one resolve and you can get all your stamina points back and there are
also some features some places that you can spin the resolve point to do something really special
at first level your character has a number of resolve points equal to one plus the ability
score modifier of her classes key ability score your key ability is decks so this is one plus
your decks mod which plus three yeah three so that's four total yeah so you have four resolve points
so you can write that down one thing I didn't understand about resolve is how do those replenish
or do they replenish they do replenish after a full eight hours of rest okay all right there might
be some conditions where that's not true but the weird thing about resolve for me is that you I
think you have to spend like I mean basically you would never want to be in a situation where you
have zero resolve points gone because then if you get hit enough then you just basically die immediately
so essentially like for all practical purposes you are never you you never have all the resolve points
that you think you have I don't know it's a little bit weird yeah it is overly complicated I would
anyway doesn't matter what I would do it's not my game okay I mean it's funny because I mean the
stamina points I really like I really like the stamina mechanic it's just the resolve one I feel a
little bit funny about I think resolve resolve is like you know the hero's been you know beaten to
the ground and he you know his willpower is yeah how can they possibly yeah exactly yeah it's very
easy yeah you just you just will yourself to survive some and personally I wouldn't have gone
the route they went I would have made that based on something like wisdom maybe willpower and
you know like the modifier whatever your modifier for wisdom that's where your resolve would go in
and you know that made yeah but that forces people you know that that then makes that one stat super
important no matter what yeah yeah and there are other you know other types of things like charisma as
I say I put my worst number yeah yeah it's everyone yeah you know outside of the occasional time
when you have to impress somebody yeah it has almost no value in the game there have to be
waste to make that an important statistic because it's important in everyday life so why don't we
have that reflected in the game and I I don't know maybe this game does it very well and I just have
run into it yet for certain players it will it will like if you were an envoy instead of a mechanic
definitely want charisma super high I mean I think that's their key ability so there's some
places where that happens okay so now you can buy equipment and I do think that this is kind of
worth just maybe maybe touching on because I mean there's a lot of equipment and stuff but but this
is one of those things that a lot of people kind of forget about or don't understand in RPG and that
is that generally in a rule book not all the time sometimes a GM just says yeah whatever you have you
have I won't question it in in these kinds of games they they have a section in the core rule book
and then certainly at least with Starfinder and Pathfinder there are whole other books that you
can buy just of equipment so in Starfinder you start flat with a thousand credits that's just
no matter who you are what you are you start with a thousand which means that you can look through
the equipment section which pretty much starts on page 171 like realistically okay and there's
some melee weapons there are some small arms on on 173 and I think your choices are going to be
and there's armor too because you're proficient in armor so you'll probably want to look at that
oh and grenades just for the sake of this episode um I will buy weapons I won't buy any of the other
stuff because you know they're gonna be listening to me just yeah exactly you know but we'll buy
weapons just to see how it works just to see how it works yeah so yeah right so I have a thousand
so credits thousand credits in other games like in D&D and even Pathfinder I think the um I think
you can first roll you can either you can choose to roll for your gold pieces in hopes of getting
above average or you can choose an average amount that they give you in the book um but in this
they just say hey you got a thousand credits so that's that in old school D&D um the amount of gold
you started with was based on your class so that um fighters always started with more and it was
a die roll it was a die roll and fighters always started with more but their equipment was more
expensive so they had to have all you have to start otherwise they they couldn't have swords or
armor or anything like that so yeah and uh wizard's got almost nothing they had they had very
little money to start yeah and they didn't have a whole lot of health points either so there you go no
that was really bad you had to really like magic you had to be lucky you simply had to be lucky in
the early days um and you you always hung back you were always way way way in the back and that meant
you always had something like magic missile or some kind of attack magic range everybody had it
because they weren't going to be doing anything else that's all they could do is fight from behind
yeah i mean the the structure of the game dictated how you played the game in a lot of ways and this
in in large part this has changed much of that the the ability to i mean in this game i mean we
haven't brought it up yet but this game has extensive magic rules so that you could have a game
system you know a space opera game in the future that has magic in it it has a character class
that's very similar to a Jedi and you do your own version of Star Wars with with this game and
you're which is cool i think that flexibility is really really neat i agree however i think those
should have been supplements not in the base book because i think it's way too much fair enough
to be thrown at but that's just that's that's a personal tasting but um at any rate let me buy
some guns i want some guns first of hand um basic melee weapon oh some of these are expensive good
grief yeah i think you for basic melee i think you have a choice between realistically well
uh it looks like there's some knives in there that you could choose from tactical but uh a knife
is probably more useful we'll go with the survival knife all right okay so that's the 95 credits
yeah i should probably mention so so equipment and you don't you can keep writing but the equipment
generally goes into two possibly two places one is on an equipment list on your character sheet
and then if it's a weapon you there's there's a space on the character sheet to kind of spec out
the weapon and kind of say what level weapon it is what kind of attack bonus if anything it gets
what kind of damage it deals sometimes there are two entries with weapons and the and the reason
for that is because you might have a weapon on your person but not not in your hand so yeah what
i had you know you want to represent it both places weapon levels or even item levels in general
you have to be that level in whatever class you are no nope so the weapon level actually i hate that
they used the term level for this it actually just represents sort of really the quality you might
have even called it quality instead of level uh of the of the weapon so you can use you can use
whatever level weapon you want now what what you can afford is a completely different story and
that is reflected in of course yeah so so there is a little bit of control there but but yeah
and sometimes there are there are add-ons to weapons like little you know chips that you can put
on your weapon to enhance their power yeah and those will have constraints as to what level of
weapon it is compatible with yeah that's and many weapons can be enchanted if you're using magic
in the game i noticed that and that can really buff your weapon quite a bit rather than another
weapon why don't i go with armor and see how armor affects my armor class oh that's a great idea
yeah yeah let's do that so that's on page page 197 looks like three-booter armor expensive but it
gives me a plus two energy and a plus three kinetic that's pretty nice yeah and we should probably
mention that really really quick so the energy AC and the kinetic AC are the two different types of
of armor in star finder and this is pre-specific to this system actually actually before we
i don't mean to interrupt but before we go into that let me buy that particular armor
and we'll go over it directly as i'm modifying my armor oh yeah that makes yeah let's
yep okay so i am buying what did i just say three-booter three-booter armor one
three-booter one and that's a level two okay so three-booter armor one say that five times fast
bulk is and bulk it's just a reflection of how much stuff you can carry at any one time
and there are specific rules for that i noticed but won't go into those i don't imagine
it doesn't really come into anything until you're trying to move everything at once okay so i
have my free-booter armor one and we'll go back up to armor class and we'll start talking some
armor okay so my free-booter armor one gives me a plus two energy attack thing let's see i don't
know what this is armor class armor class of course yeah energy armor class and kinetic armor class
of course energy is getting zapped with a laser again hit with electricity etc kinetic is getting
stabbed slashed punched etc shot as well so a shot specifically with a you know a bullet or some
some kind of something that delivers a kinetic payload i do get an armor bonus and i assume that's
where i put my bonus right yeah because it says bonus all right so i do plus two on energy and i do
plus three on kinetic i'm just starting off with those bonuses from my armor but let's go through
it because there are dex modifiers and other it looks like miscellaneous modifiers as well so well
we'll start off it seems like we start with a plus yeah we start with a 10 plus our armor bonus
okay okay so i'm up to 12 i have a dex modifier now how do they determine the that is all
when they say modifier they're very consistently talking about your ability modifier oh all right
so i have a plus three on that miscellaneous might be from magic it might be from what like
biotics or you know cybernetics of some sort yeah okay so none of that applies so i have a total
of plus five so my total is 15 yeah which we're really good for uh for to to be able to
okay to avoid a laser shot that's that's that's nice for especially for first level i feel
yeah that's pretty good it's not bad with my with my armor and without it i'm still at 13 which
is pretty good so now for the kinetic it's even better because i'm getting plus three for my
plus three for my armor for kinetic attack and plus three for my dex which is a 16 total so that's
actually very nice that's very nice now here's something i don't get eight my armor class versus
combat maneuver yeah so combat maneuvers is when i honestly i don't know if anyone who actually
uses this rule but it is there and it's if you want to like grapple someone and hold them in place
uh or maybe drag them over to a precipice and throw them off the side or something when you're
defending against that this is the number that they have to beat in order to successfully you know
grapple you okay so my just to write it down and have it there um my dex modifier for that is plus
three um my armor bonus is my kinetic armor class really the the armor class itself no that
mean the the total the total kinetic which is 16 yeah the total the total kinetic which is 16 plus
eight so you're 20 plus three 24 something like that that's another thing that i'm not used to
numbers going way past 20 yeah isn't it weird yeah it really is yeah it's really unsettling
i yeah the numbers add up they do i i know they all add up yeah wow yeah okay 24 of 27 yeah
total of 27 wow because that was simply impossible in the old days yeah yeah yeah just because
it wouldn't it wouldn't calculate it's crazy but there were there were horrible compromises made
as well you know um like for you know human strength humans can only be eight you know they can
only go up to a strength of 18 but some are stronger than others so you know that now we have a
percentage yeah 18 30 and 18 50 and 18 double zero whoa the strongest a human kappa amy it was stupid
it was it was it was ridiculous below these is is that dr what is that what does that refer to
that is damage resistance okay i i'm i'm thinking that you don't have anything special for dr or
resistance because i feel like that would be more if you were an alien who maybe came from a
a planet of acid you would be resistant to acid as something that would yeah yeah so yeah as a human
i feel like you're probably just kind of running them though all right we'll just leave it at that
that's fun all right so armor class actually is i have to tell you i really like what they did
with armor class i really do it's it's so much better make a lot more sense yeah it's so so much
better and you can get you know right into the detail energy versus kinetic and it does it
solves that problem of well you know you shoot someone with a gun they fall over why it yeah why
why wouldn't that happen here and and we've got a little bit of that now we we can say well it's
you know some sci-fi magic stuff but but it's like you know energy a c versus k a c obvious yeah
i mean i'm i never i've never played this game you know even though i have the rule book where
you know this is all new to me but i used to play a lot of traveler and one of the armor types
that traveler used to have was it was a type of armor called reflect and reflect was a mirror
surface that you could put on and almost any other kind of hard armor and it would you'd spray it
on you know essentially or have it applied it you know at a armor armor or something like that
and that specifically was a good against lasers it was specifically against lasers and if you had
good reflect on your armor you know you might be shot up with regular bullets but they can almost
never touch you with a laser when you had good reflect and this is a way of expressing that
if they had an armor like that and the probably is one in there if i looked closely enough
there probably is one very similar to that it would give you an eac that was very very high a great
bonus for your eac but maybe almost nothing for kac because that's not what it's for yeah i like that
yeah i really do like that there there is actually one more thing that you we we should probably
just at least have you choose okay um and that is alignment yeah you know all the alignments yes i
know of the alignments yes and i think that could this could probably be a completely separate episode
if we were to actually try to explain what they all were which we won't do here so did you want to
choose one i will probably just go with uh we'll go with some chaotic neutral that's always been
a fun one you know chaotic neutral characters are kind of yeah maybe kind of the hand solo type maybe
i don't know i think there's an argument there yeah i mean everybody has their own interpretation
i've read so many descriptions people's opinions about what alignments actually refer to just
very very briefly for listeners alignment in classic dungeons and dragons an alignment was a
reflection of your spiritual condition regarding what you consider to be good and what versus
bad or what you consider to be chaotic versus order right and it was it's this chart of nine different
alignments that kind of is are they all dance between order and chaos and good and evil and dnd
it's it's extremely important to know what your alignment is extremely because you're running
into monsters that may or may not hurt you based on your alignment you're running into magic or
magic to yeah magic items that you can only use if you're a certain alignment and things like that
and essentially if you're a good person and you believe in law and order then you're lawful good
it's it's that simple and if you're a despicable person that believes in absolute freedom and nobody
should ever tell you what to do and you're gonna do whatever you want to do to anybody at any time
you're chaotic evil and those are considered the two extremes so in star finder it may or
may not have any value the alignment yeah i think it would it would depend on the game on you on
what kind of adventure you were going through if you are running one with magic or maybe those
Jedi-like characters probably it has a very important you know it would more or less have the
same role that it does in you know a fantasy setting if you're doing one that's more hard science
or more space opera it's just a reflection of your philosophy in life really and there is a
section for deity if deity matters and again in a fantasy world a high fantasy world deities matter
a great deal in a world like this it depends it's their magic in this universe if there is then
yeah it matters if it doesn't then probably it's just a matter of your personal philosophy and
you know your personal religious bent which will have an effect on the character but you know if
there's no magic you're not going to run into a magic item that's going to zap you and kill you
if you're the wrong alignment or you believe in the wrong god so so i'll leave that blank for now
and all i need is a character name i'm gonna go with a harry keeter brawlands and that's because
his initials are hpr nice very nice and that is him it's my character now if i was better
acquainted with the rules and how this all this worked this would not take anywhere near
as much time i would know exactly what i had to do and what order i needed to do it in to make
it most efficient there's a there is a real lot to liken this but i don't know i always feel like
i can tweak things or should so i i have the same problem because i mean obviously i like to
write how-tos and tutorials on things i just that's something that for whatever reason i really
enjoy doing and whenever i see a text i mean the first thing that my mind goes to is like how could
this have been expressed clearer but hopefully that's what this episode is doing i think that
stepping through it really does make it congeal a little bit better i'm understanding it better
but i've been reading it right i still haven't got a whole book yet but i i've been reading through
the book however anyone listening to this episode if if they don't have the book in front of them
a lot of this isn't gonna make an awful lot of sense it just it just won't and we are not following
the order necessarily that they that they've expressed is the way to do it but that's because i
you know we don't think the order makes any sense right i think i think that the take away from
this episode if i had to choose would be the idea that in order to build a character you have to
sit down with the text and look things up i mean it's if that's what it is you know there's no
magic to it you don't just stare at the character sheet and put numbers in you don't have to have
someone hold your hand through it you just look at the text and do what it says and then you know
if you have to maybe practice a couple of times and sometimes yeah it is it's flipping back and forth
you know i mean like we've been all over this book already yeah just just to build this character
and there's an argument that hey it would be really cool if they could put all of the things
in one place and you know but this rulebook is also a reference book and so i think that they're
trying to do sort of double duty you know here's how to build the character and oh by the way here's
all the stuff that later when you've already built your character you're still gonna want to refer to
we wanted that to be in a logical order so it does a lot of things but i think the takeaway is
read the rulebook of whatever game system you're you're building for and follow the steps
probably worth just sort of noting that if people don't think that this sounds like fun
look at another system like there's other systems that are a lot simpler where you can roll up a
character in literally five or ten minutes and and then start playing so it's it's not like this
is the only way to do it this is just one way
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