Pathfinder 2e - Character creation - Return of Devi Stoneson

    Back when the second edition playtest came out I made a Dwarf Fighter as a sample character (part 1 and part 2).  So now that the official second edition is out, let's make him again, and walk through all the choices you have at character creation.

Ancestry

    So we have a few choices in the Core Rulebook-

• Dwarf
• Elf
• Gnome
• Goblin
• Halfling
• Human (which includes options for Half-Elf and Half-Orc).

Since I'm re-creating the same character I'm sticking with Dwarf.

Dwarf comes with a few stats-

• Hit Points: 10
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 20'
• Ability Boosts: Con, Wis, free
• Ability Flaw: Cha
• Languages: Common, Dwarven + Int (which I'll revisit when I've got my final Int mod)
• Traits: Dwarf, Humanoid (duh)
• Darkvision - can see in darkness and dim light as well as bright, but in black & white

Now the choices.  First off, Dwarves have 5 heritages-

• Ancient-Blooded: gives you an ability to resist magic
• Death Warden: increases saves against necromancy
• Forge: fire resistance
• Rock: bonus to resist being moved
• Strong-Blooded: poison resistance

    I'm not writing the one sentence bit of flavor, it's not enough to be worth paying attention to.  I took a poison resistance feat with him last time, so I noticed Strong-Blooded.  But my loose concept for him is really more of a Fighter/Cleric, so I like the idea of Death Warden, maybe he guarded his clan's ancestral tombs and knows all about the old heroes and gods.  Yeah, I like that.

 Last is the Ancestry feat, you get one at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th levels.  Let's see what we've got to choose from-

• Dwarven Lore - you're Trained in Crafting and Religion (can swap if gain one of them from another source) and Dwarven Lore
• Dwarven Weapon Familiarity - considered trained in some weapons, no bonus beyond what your class gives
• Rock Runner - can move better across difficult stone and earth
• Stonecunning - bonus to skills with stone and finding stone secret doors
• Unburdened Iron - ignore some speed penalties
• Vengeful Hatred - a small damage bonus against some enemies

    Okay, first some hot takes on the abilities, most of them suck.  These are first level feats, so you don't expect them to be too powerful, but that's balanced against the fact that you only ever get 5 of them.  The Unburdened Iron seems super-useless.  Sure you get that one extra square of movement in heavy armor, but just how often is that really going to make a big difference?  As a Fighter (which I'm planning on) the Dwarven Weapon Familiarity is pretty useless, unless one of those exotic Dwarf weapons is clearly superior to all others (which I doubt, thought I haven't looked yet... okay, I looked there's 1 simple weapon and 1 martial weapon and they're decent but nothing that superior to all the other weapons).  I will concede that for non-Fighters it might be kind of worthwhile, but I can't see it being by a lot.  Stonecunning is not bad, secret things are usually worth finding.  Rock Runner is pretty specialized, not sure how often it's going to come into play.  Vengeful Hatred is extra damage, which is never a bad thing, but 1 point is not a big difference, especially with the HP bloat at higher levels.
    This one is easy, I'm taking Dwarven Lore.  Maybe not the greatest feat, but two skills that fit my concept (and whatever the hell Dwarven Lore is good for?).
    And that finishes up the Ancestry, moving on to...

Background

    I wanted to walk through all the available options and take a quick look at each with this post, but Backgrounds pose a bit of a problem.  There are a lot of them, 35 to be exact.  However, they are all very brief.  The total Background section takes up 5 pages, with pictures on 3 of those pages.  So since the book doesn't devote much space to them, I'm not either - I'm just going to list them by title below:

• Acolyte
• Acrobat
• Animal Whisperer
• Artisan
• Artist
• Barkeep
• Barrister
• Bounty Hunter
• Charlatan
• Criminal
• Detective
• Emissary
• Entertainer
• Farmhand
• Field Medic
• Fortune Teller
• Gambler
• Gladiator
• Guard
• Herbalist
• Hermit
• Hunter
• Laborer
• Martial Disciple
• Merchant
• Miner
• Noble
• Nomad
• Prisoner
• Sailor
• Scholar
• Scout
• Street Urchin
• Tinker
• Warrior

    Whew, what a list.
    Last time I made Devi I took the Warrior background.  And I thought it was very strange that I got the Quick Repair skill feat but didn't get the Crafting skill it depends on.  I'm happy that they fixed that from the playtest.  Now Warriors get the Intimidation skill and the related Intimidating Glare skill feat.
    This time though, I think I'm going for the Scholar Background.  I'm seeing this character as a special guard, that he was kind of sequestered away from other Dwarves, kind of like a scholar.  I'm thinking that maybe something was stolen, an artifact or even a body, and he's left to reclaim it.  So he would have studied the history of all the items/relics and people that he was guarding.  This background also gives him the Occultism skill, which I think could be a cool hint as to the thieves.  He also gets the Assurance skill feat w-Occult, which let's him "take 10" on a roll - yup, no longer are take 10/20 parts of the core game, now they are specific feats (well, 10, not sure if there is a take 20 feat, haven't read them all yet.) and the Academia Lore skill, which is so vague I'm going to interpret it as a list he has of notable scholars and educational institutions to help him find the thieves.
    He also gets a boost to Int or Wis and a free boost.  I'll tally those up at the end.

Class

    The big one now, Class.  There are 12 in the Core Rulebook-

• Alchemist
• Barbarian
• Bard
• Champion
• Cleric
• Druid
• Fighter
• Monk
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Sorcerer
• Wizard

    I'm not going to describe them all, they're the same ones from first edition with the addition of the Alchemist.  The "Champion" is the new name for the old Paladin.  I like that idea, it is long overdue to broaden the concept of the Paladin from the "generic good guy" into something more nuanced.  Sadly they didn't quite go all the way with that concept (as I'm noticing a lot in these rules).

 I was a Fighter last time and I'm sticking with that again.  So he gets a few things from the class...

• Key Ability: Strength or Dexterity.  I see him as being a Str fighter, and he gets a boost in that.
• Hit Points: 10 + Con mod
• Perception:  expert
• Saving Throws: expert in Fort and Ref, trained Will
• Skills: trained in choice of Acrobatics or Athletics, and trained in choice of 3 + Int mod
• Attacks: expert in simple, martial and unarmed
• Defenses: trained in all armor and unarmored

    And these are the Class Features-

• I'm going to write this one out verbatim from the book, "Ancestry and Background- In addition to the abilities provided by your class at 1st level, you have the benefits of your selected ancestry and background, as described in chapter 2."  What the hell is this?  Pages 21-30 have all the character creation steps and even a sample character (we're on page 142).  This is such a common thing in 2e, repeating information like you're a stupid 5 year old who can't figure anything out on your own.  I am super-sick of it, and it's killing any desire to go on reading this let alone actually run it.  Paizo, if you want to write books for children, then don't sell them for $60.  The next "class feature" is Initial Proficiencies, which is all the stuff I already mentioned above, which was in a clearly marked sidebar, and again you must be pretty damn stupid to not get that.  This crap makes me want to puke.
• Attack of Opportunity - like the 1e ability everybody had, in 2e only Fighters can attack on someone else's turn.  I'm actually okay with that, it makes Fighters a little more dangerous and special, and tracking AoOs for everybody was a fair amount of work.
• Shield Block - this is a bonus feat Fighters get.  Now, I totally hate how 2e treats shields.  Combat in Pathfinder is actually quite abstract, hit points represent luck and exertion as well as physical damage, and armor class represents the ability to dodge as well as to absorb blows.  This is the legacy that was inherited from Dungeons and Dragons.  Which is why it's always baffled me why Pathfinder 1e was so precisely simulation-ist with things like DR (which was never used with Armor by default, the one place it would make the most sense if you want to model reality) and the combat grid.  Weirdly 2e has decided to double-down on that in some ways, shields being most notable.  In 1e shields we're abstracted as a bonus to your armor class (ie, odds of not getting hurt) and that was it, you just had to remember a few times when you didn't get your shield bonus.  2e decided that was too simple, now you have to take one of your 3 actions each turn to "Raise a Shield" in order to get that AC bonus, and then you can use the Shield Block feat to spend your Reaction (ability to act on someone else's turn, you only get one each turn, period) and use your shield as DR, but both you and the shield take any damage above it's hardness and so you now also have to track your shield's HP to check for when it breaks.  Oh yeah, and since the Shield Block takes your reaction, you can't both block and use your Attack of Opportunity.  Now, this does give you another layer of defense with a shield, which is not a bad thing, but it also adds the bookkeeping of taking the action every turn just to get the bonus, guessing if you should use your AOO or block or any other reactions each turn, and it just feels super stupid that you can forget to use your shield, or watch shield after shield break while your sword never does (nothing I'm aware of yet specifically damages weapons).

   Anyways, those are the class features, so all that's left is picking our level 1 Class feat-

• Double Slice - 2 acts - when dual-wielding you can attack twice without increasing the multiple attack penalty (on these two, normally on a 3rd) and combine the damage into one attack
• Exacting Strike - 1 act, Press; this is one of the times when the keywords actually matter, "Press" means you can only use this when you have a multiple attack penalty, so this has to be your 2nd attack - if this attack misses it doesn't increase the multiple attack penalty for your 3rd attack
• Point-Blank Shot - "Open" this has to be the first thing you do in a turn, "Stance" it takes an action to start this, and it continues until you cannot maintain it or choose to end it, 1 act (so is that the action you have to take to enter the stance or is it an extra action you have to take before the shot?) - has 2 effects; (1)with a "ranged volley weapon" (the longbow, only) you "ignore the attack roll penalty from the volley trait."  Okay, so in 2e longbows apparently have -2 a penalty to hit anything within 30' (don't ask me why), with this ability you can ignore that.  (2)with a non-volley ranged weapon you get +2 damage within the first range increment (which is 60' for the shortbow)
• Power Attack - "Flourish" you cannot take a second action with flourish in the same turn, 2 acts -  take the multiple attack penalty but do an extra die of damage, with another die at levels 10 and 18
• Reactive Shield - React when hit w-shield - auto Raise A Shield and gain the AC bonus on this attack and for rest of turn
• Snagging Strike - have one hand free, 1 act - make a Strike, if hit target is flat-footed (-2 AC) until your next turn or it moves out of reach
• Sudden Charge - Open, Flourish, 1 act - Stride (move up to your speed) twice and make a melee attack

    I am thinking about multi-classing this character with Cleric, but you have to be at least 2nd level to do that.  So something for the future.
    Everything I hate about 2nd edition is right in the Point-Blank Shot ability.  In 1st edition PBS was easy, you get +2 damage within 30' with a ranged weapon.  Simple.  Useful (to a degree, not accounting for HP bloat).  So did they keep it the same (ain't broke don't fix it principle) or did they improve it in 2nd?  No.  Instead we make it a hell of a lot more complicated and clutter it with weird pseudo-realism in our non-realistic high fantasy game.  The text defining the "Stance" trait says you need to take an action to activate the stance, but the ability itself says it takes an action to use - so did they duplicate the same action out of stupidity, or does it take one action to start and then another action for each shot, and is that action in place of the shot or in addition to it?  This does not have to be confusing - in point of fact it wasn't confusing before, instead 2e took something that worked and screwed it up.  And why the hell can't longbows shoot accurately within 30'?  I have shot a kid's bow in my younger days, so I'm not a professional archer, but from what I've done and people I've watched it seems that shooting closer things is easier since you don't have to account for gravity as much as with a far away target.  And why are we trying to inject some kind of realism with bow usage into a game with fireball-throwing elves?  This ain't Riddle of Steel Paizo!
    Otherwise, Double Slice seems to be okay, make two attacks but without the penalty, allright.  Exacting Strike seems stupid, it's a re-named version of the same ability I gave the original character, all it does is let you miss better.  Wow, that makes me feel special.  Power Attack is actually okay, it's like the original - a penalty to hit for extra damage - and it even levels up a little with you to stay relevant.  I'm good with that one, wish more abilities were like it.  Reactive Shield is stupid because everything we do with shields in the game is stupid.  Snagging Strike is also good, it's a simple ability that makes it easier for your friends to hit somebody, and party cooperation is a good thing.  Sudden Charge is also alright, kind of hate that you need a special ability to do it, I'd imagine I could run up to somebody and hit them with a stick, but it's not terrible.
    Since I hate the new shield rules so much, I'm thinking of making him a two-handed weapon fighter, so I'm going to take Power Attack.

Ability Scores

    According to the character creation checklist I'm now at Step 6- Determine Ability Scores.  So let's recap the ability scores so far:

Ancestry:  +2 Con, +2 Wis, free, -2 Cha
Background:  +2 Int or Wis, free
Class:  +2 Str

    I first need to decide on those "free" boosts, each is a +2 but cannot be applied twice.  Even though Dwarves are antisocial (Cha penalty) and he's lived apart from other Dwarves as a guard, I'm thinking I want him to be decent at talking to people (he likes to share the epic tales of old), so I'm putting the Ancestry free boost into Cha to offset that penalty.  I want him to Cleric later, so the Background boost is going into Wis and the free is going to Con because he's lived a spartan life of hardship as a tomb guard.  That leaves me with:

Str  12 (+1)
Dex  10 (0)
Con 14 (+2)
Int 10 (0)
Wis 12 (+1)
Cha 10 (0)

    Finally everybody gets 4 free boosts, like the others they cannot be applied to a score twice.  I'm going for Str, Con, Wis, Cha for my final attributes as:

Str  14 (+2)
Dex  10 (0)
Con  16 (+3)
Int  10 (0)
Wis  14 (+2)
Cha  12 (+1)

Odds and Ends

    Just some final numbers and things to figure out.

• Hit Points - 10 Dwarf + 10 Fighter + 3 Con = 23
• Bonus Languages - 0 Int mod means none (too bad, I'd like the flavor of him knowing an ancient language or something)
• Skills - From my Dwarven Lore Ancestry feat I get: Crafting (Recall Knowledge, Repair, trained: Craft, Earn Income, Identify Alchemy), Religion (Recall Knowledge, trained: Decipher Writing, Identify Magic, Learn A Spell) which I think would cover his own and enemy pantheons and Dwarven Lore (Recall Knowledge and trained: Earn Income).  Scholar gives him Occultism (Recall Knowledge, Decipher Writing, Identify Magic, Learn A Spell - only the first untrained) and Academia Lore (Recall Knowledge and trained: Earn Income).  From Fighter I get, Acrobatics or Athletics.  Athletics is the Str one, so he can Climb, Force Open, Grapple, High Jump, Long Jump, Shove, Swim, Trip and Disarm (only the last needing to be skilled).  And he gets 3 + 0 Int bonus skills.  I'm going to take Diplomacy (Gather Information, Make an Impression, Request -no trained only actions), so I can ask people if they've seen the stolen McGuffin.  Arcana (Recall Knowledge, trained: Borrow an Arcane Spell, Decipher Writing, Identify Magic, Learn a Spell) since knowing about magic might be helpful?  Lastly Medicine (Administer first Aid, Recall Knowledge, trained: Treat Disease, Treat poison, Treat Wounds).

    I have to say that having actions anyone can do and actions only trained people can do makes sense to me, it's pretty much the definition of a skill as opposed to an attribute.  But you'd think that every skill would have trained-only actions then.  Stealth, Intimidation and Diplomacy don't.  Yet Diplomacy's actions are all personal - Gather Information, Make an Impression, Request.  Why not have Mediate (get two opposing groups to agree, which justifiably takes advanced knowledge of talking to people) or Whisper Campaign (to raise or lower the reputation of a group or person) as trained skills?

Equipment

    This is the last big step, once I get my gear I can fill out a character sheet and be good to go.  Of course I have to find a character sheet since I'm not using the backside-ugly one in the book.  One problem at a time.
    All characters get 150 SP (or 15 GP) to start, and I'm going to buy the following:

• Scale Mail - 40sp, +3 AC, Dex Cap +2, no armor check penalty due to Str, no move penalty due to Str, Bulk 2 (3 carried), composite material
• Greataxe - 20sp, 1d12 S dmg, 2 Bulk, 2 Hands, Axe group, Sweep (+1 cir attack against a different enemy)
• Hatchet - 4sp, 1d6 S dmg, 0.1 Bulk, 1 Hand, Axe group, Agile (multi attack penalty -4/-8), Sweep, Thrown 10'
• Adventurer's Pack - 7sp, 2 Bulk, contains: backpack, bedroll, 2 belt pouches, 10 pieces of chalk, flint and steel, 50 feet of rope, 2 weeks rations, soap, 5 torches, waterskin
• Manacles, simple - 30sp, 3 DC 22 thievery checks to pick, 0 Bulk
• Religious Text - 10sp
• Repair Kit - 20sp, 1 Bulk

Spent - 131sp
Money: 19sp,  Bulk: 7.1, carry 7.9 w/o penalty, max 12 lift/carry

Final Thoughts

    My character's finished.  It was a lot harder process than I expected.  It is a new game, and with every new game comes the adjustment period until you get the hang of the system.  But there were also moments of screaming at the book and harassing my friends asking them to explain some baffling choices to me (which was unfair as I don't think even the designers know what they were doing).  I'm not excited to play this game, not looking forward to seeing what my character can do.  It's way too simple and way too complicated at the same time - which I'll grant is an impressive feat.
    I managed to find a fillable pdf, not from Paizo of course but at: https://queuetimes.com/fillable-character-sheet-for-pathfinder-2e/.  Big thanks to them for working it up!
    You can download Devi from my Google Drive here.

Sample Characters: Starfinder

    I did a post earlier about making a character for the My Little Pony RPG, Tails Of Equestria.  At the time it was because I had nothing else to write :) but I decided to make it a thing.  So from time to time I'm going to create a character for an RPG and post it - and today we're going with Starfinder. Now, I know nothing about Starfinder except that it's "Pathfinder in space."  So I am not going to make an optimized character, heck I might not even make a playable character.  But it might be interesting for any of you who haven't played the game before.  So let's jump in.

    I'm only using the core Starfinder rulebook for this build, and it has a list of character creation steps on pages 14-15.  And then the following sections totally disregard that order.  So I'm going to write this in the steps that I went through.  In this case, both the book and I agreed to start with "a character concept."  I have no idea if I'll ever play this character, or with whom, or in what kind of a campaign.  So I want to make the most broadly applicable character possible.  And that means fighter.  Any RPG can use somebody who can kill monsters.  But I don't really like the "tank" fighter, I like the smart Batman (which sadly no filmmaker on Earth seems to also like), so I want to do a smart fighter.  With guns/ tech I think I'm looking at a Dex-based, quick kind of fighter.


    The next step (in my process) was to look at the "Themes."  These are little ways to flavor your character, kind of like the Backgrounds in D&D 5th Ed.  There are 10 of them, each one comes with 4 leveled abilities:

• Ace Pilot - you're good at driving and flying and all that stuff
• Bounty Hunter - you hunt people
• Icon - you're a pop star, or have some kind of audience 
• Mercenary - you're used to carrying stuff and working in a group
• Outlaw - you have contacts in the criminal underworld
• Priest - you're connected to a deity and church/ religion
• Scholar - you're smart and good at reading
• Spacefarer - you're a jack of all trades
• Xenoseeker - you know about alien life forms
• "Themeless" - you can choose to not have a theme, in which case you still get a small benefit (not quite as much as having a theme though)

    For a "fighter" the obvious choices would be Bounty Hunter or Mercenary.  But I don't really want to go that route, I feel like making something a little more unusual.  My first thought was the Icon, that maybe I was some kind of popular fighter, like a YouTuber of the future (maybe Xander Cage from XXX would be a better role-model though :) - but then I really liked the idea of Priest.  There is a list of 20 deities in the back of the book (starting on page 482).  The descriptions are very, very brief, and don't describe the kinds of churches or religious organization in very much depth, but one did strike me.  "Desna" is the goddess of dreams, luck, stars and travelers.  She jumped out at me because it says that she communicates with her followers through dreams, and they rely on instinct.  That seems like it would be a great tool for my GM.  If my character follows the dreams and hunches of his Goddess, then the GM can use me as a way to guide the party, a two-legged plot device.  I now from my GMing that sometimes it's great to have a way to tug on the party "in character" to help guide them when they get stuck or off course.  So with this character I can be the mouthpiece of the GM if necessary.  And it isn't the stereotypical military fighter.  So I'll go with that.


    With a Theme, let's skip over to the class.  Your class is the biggest thing about your character, since it'll have an impact on your character through the entire game.  The "fighter" of the Starfinder setting is the Soldier.  But there are 7 classes in the book:

• Envoy - the space Bard
• Mechanic - the summoner or cyborg
• Mystic - the spacde Magic User
• Operative - the space Rogue
• Solarian - the space Soulknife (guy who summons weapon or armor for non-psychic fans)
• Soldier - the space Fighter
• Technomancer - the Magic User who uses technology

    As I mentioned I knew I was going to be a Soldier.  The Solarian would also fit with the "fighter" concept, and might even go a bit better in a way with the Priest Theme, but I didn't feel like making that character.  So a Soldier I will be.  At level 1 a Soldier has one class ability, they have to choose a "Primary Fighting Style."  They'll get 5 abilities from this style, starting at 1st level and every 4 after.  There are 7 styles in the book.  And I have to admit, they all looked pretty good on average.  The "Blitz" rushes into melee, which didn't sound like fun for me.  The "Bombard" throws grenades/ explosives.  The "Guard" is defensive, which would have worked with my concept but I didn't feel it.  The "Hit-and-Run" is a mobile fighter, while the "Sharpshoot" (yeah, no "-er" at the end of it) stays at a range.  Neither appealed to me.
    The two that I really liked were the "Arcane Assailant" who is basically the Magus from Pathfinder, and the "Armor Storm" who eventually wears Power Armor.  I love the idea of the Power Armor, the suit of armor with it's own weapons and abilities, basically Iron Man.  But I also really like the Wizard/ Fighter hybrid of the Magus, though the Arcane Assailant doesn't cast spells, just enhances weapons.  This was a really, really hard choice.  I actually wanted both, and I think I am going to make both down the line, but for right now I'm going to force myself to commit to the Armor Storm.  One of the things I like about Power Armor is that you use it's Strength in place of your own.  So I can focus on Dex, and eventually I'll let the armor handle the Str.


    Okay, with a Theme and Class, let's get the last major leg of the character and decide on a Race.  There are 7:

• Android - sentient robots, tough and smart but not very sociable
• Human - versatile, gain a bonus feat and choose an ability (exactly the same as Pathfinder)
• Kasatha - 4-armed warrior poets
• Lashunta - psychics, choose either the  smart or tough sub-types
• Shirren - hive mind insects
• Vesk - space Orcs
• Yoski - space Hobbit-rats

    The description of the Androids talks about how they used to be slaves of the Humans and have some baggage over that.  I'm not really interested in that troupe, but I do like the idea that this character has chosen to be a servant of the Goddess instead of any mortal power.  I kind of have this idea that he's sort of broken though, or maybe considered defective by other androids.  Not sure if I really want to explore that, but it was an idea.  Also, Androids also get bonuses to Dex and Int, which are the two attributes I am aiming for, and the penalty to Cha is not a big deal since the typical fighter is not expected to be the talker.


    Okay, with the big three - I am an Android Priest Soldier - I've got the major part of my character.  Time to start filling in the details and actually playing with some numbers.  Let's get our Attributes fixed.  I've got +2 Dex +2 Int +1 Wis -2 Cha.  I like Starfinder for making Point Buy the default and rolling an optional rule.  I actually don't like rolling for attribute scores, I think point-buy is a better system to keep everything level.  So here are starting scores:

• Strength             10
• Dexterity            12
• Constituation     10
• Intelligence        12
• Wisdom             11
• Charisma            8

    To these scores I can add 10 points, with no score going over 18.  You can't lower a score, only raise them.  After some beard-scratching I settle on these...

• Strength            10 (+0)
• Dexterity          16 (+3)
• Constituation    12 (+1)
• Intelligence       14 (+2)
• Wisdom            13 (+1)
• Charisma           8 (-1)

    Forcing the odd score is annoying to me.  I think the whole odd-scores-for-feat-prequisites is stupid.  I doubt anybody would notice anything if we dropped the scores and only used modifiers.  But it is what it is.  So those will be my attribute scores.  Are they the best scores?  Are they a good base for developing in the future?  I have no idea, but they look good to me.


    On to Skills.  As a Soldier I get 4 skill points, and with the Int mod that's 6 total.  So basically I can pick 6 skills and have them always equal to my level.  While I could put points in skills one level, and then different skills another level, I think that would be stupid.  Might as well pick some skills and stick to them.  I have 8 class skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Engineering, Intimidate, Medicine, Piloting, Profession, and Survival.  From the Priest Theme I add Mysticism as a class skill.  All of those skills will get a +3 bonus if I put at least one skill point in them, but I can choose any skills I want.  There are 20 skills total - I'm so not going to list them all here.  Here are the skills I went with, and my modifiers...

• Acrobatics        1 sp + 3 class + 3 Dex = +7
• Athletics        1 sp + 3 class + 0 Str = +4
• Engineering        1 sp + 3 class + 2 Int = +6
• Medicine        1 sp + 3 class + 2 Int = +6
• Mysticism        1 sp + 3 class + 1 Wis = +5
• Perception        1 sp + not class + 1 Wis = +2

    To be honest, I have no idea what skills to take.  None of them really jump out as something my character should be able to do.  I went with Acrobatics and Athletics to give me the ability to move around, and since the character is Dex based, so he seems like to should be mobile (through, granted, Athletics is Str based).  Engineering sounds good for a robot, and Medicine is something that he can use to help others.  Mysticism just goes with his spiritual side, and the last was a toss-up.  Stealth sounded like it could be useful, but I wasn't sure how well it fit with the character concept.  He doesn't seem like a sneaky guy.  Neither Diplomacy or Culture sounded right, though I'm still not sure about Culture, it might work to represent the places he's been and different kinds of people he's helped.  In the end I settled on Perception because it's never a bad skill really.  I'm not sure it should be a skill in the first place, and since it isn't class it's not very high, but nothing else seemed like a better choice.


    Now for the Feats.  Well, feat singular.  This is the part of Pathfinder I hate.  Feats can let you do cool stuff, but they have such incomprehensibly long feat chains and prerequisites, in some cases, and are totally useless in other cases.  And there are too damn many of them.  Thankfully I've only got one book, but even still there are a lot of feats to look over and choose from - 98 if my count is right (not listing that many).  After giving them all a quick look there were a few that looked good.  "Bodyguard" would let him boost an ally's AC, though he isn't a real tanky-tank fighter.  "Blind-fight" kind of works with the "follows instinct" background of his god's followers, and it isn't useless though you likely won't see enemies in cover all the time.  "Mobility" might work, though I don't see him dancing through enemies, I think more and more he's likely going to be a ranged attacker.  "Suppressive Fire" would let him pin down enemies with a ranged attack, which might be very helpful.  And "Weapon Focus" applies to a whole group of weapons now, instead of the single weapon of Pathfinder.  But what's better, there is another feat called "Versatile Focus" that lets you extend Weapon Focus to all weapons you're proficient in, and as a Soldier that's all the weapons.  A Soldier does get a bonus feat at 2nd level, so I would take Weapon at 1st and Versatile at 2nd and then get a bonus to hit with all weapons.  I think I'm going to go that route, even though I'm not sure if the bonus to hit is really that great, having a better chance to hit seems like a good thing for a soldier to have.  Okay, feat chosen and even my next level's feat to boot.


    The last big step is Equipment.  Fantasy Pathfinder has quite a bit of equipment, sci-fi Starfinder has pages and pages of really small lists of equipment.  Oh boy is this going to be a pain.  Well, I've got 1,000 credits so lets see how far they go.
    After a lot of small print, here's what I've got...
250cr        Pulsecaster Pistol (does non-lethal damage)
350cr        Laser Pistol, Azimuth
250cr        Second Skin (light armor)
120cr        2 spare Batteries (for either weapon)
7cr        Personal Comm
1cr        Flashlight
20cr        Engineering Tool Kit
which leaves him with 2 credits in his pocket.  Wow, that doesn't seem like a lot of gear, but so it goes.  The leveled gear like D&D 4th Ed. is kind of a pain in the backside since it makes the lists so damn long.


    And the final choice to make is Alignment, which I'm going to make Chaotic Good like his deity.  The rest is just copying down the numbers, which I will do and post the character sheet on my Google Drive here.  I used a great fillable PDF character sheet I found here.

   Well, this has been an interesting experience.  I do like the game from first impressions, there seem to be some neat potential characters from the races, themes and classes.  Picking feats is not as horrible as Pathfinder, but isn't really fun - and the equipment lists are a bear to navigate - both could use being listed by level, there are a lot of feats and gear that a beginning character cannot choose or afford.  It is a little daunting to wade through the options, and the skill list does not seem really evocative.  Making a character without any real knowledge of the system is kind of a pain, but I've done a lot worse.  No doubt with some experience it will be easy enough.  The character did seem to grow pretty well from concept to final details, so I liked how everything fit overall.  I'd give it a thumbs-up if I was bothering to rate it, but one character is not much to formulate an opinion.
    So there you go, there's a Starfinder character that you can use, and a little insight into how the system works.  Hope you enjoyed our little project, and if you were a Patron of mine (see the link at the right) you could choose what game you wanted me to make a character for next (shameless plug, hey, I like to eat).  Until next time then!

Bonus Legal Stuff - I used the logo from the Paizo Community Package, so here's the required legaleeze: "This website uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo Inc., which are used under Paizo's Community Use Policy. We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content. This [website, character sheet, or whatever it is] is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Paizo Inc. For more information about Paizo's Community Use Policy, please visit paizo.com/communityuse. For more information about Paizo Inc. and Paizo products, please visit paizo.com."

Character Creation: Tails of Equestria

    I had never seen any of the "My Little Pony" cartoons before a friend talked me into making a character for its role-playing game (mind you, 'talked me into' consisted of handing me the book :).  I found it to be a very interesting experience, and I want to share my thoughts and character with you here.


How To Make A Pony
    This is actually quite simple, there are a whole 6 choices.  It's simple enough I'll give you all the options as I walk through it.



1st- What type of pony are you?
    An Earth Pony is strong and brave, a Pegasus can fly, and a Unicorn uses magic.

I like magic, so I first thought of Unicorn.  But, if I did play this pony with my friends there was already a Unicorn and an Earth Pony - so I figured I'd go with Pegasus.

2nd- What is your Element of Harmony?
    pick from: Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, or Magic

Generosity sounded good to me (since I was eschewing magic).  I had a vision of a pony who was very helpful and always had the right tool on hand when somebody needed to do something.

3rd- Body or Mind higher?
    You have 3 attributes: Body, Mind and Charm.  Charm is the same for all starting ponies, but you have to choose weather your Body or Mind is higher.

My "being helpful" concept seemed more material than in knowing stuff, so I went with Body as the higher of the two stats.

4th- Choose a Talent
    Every pony gets one free Talent, or power/ ability, from their type, and they get to choose one more (or upgrade the default one).

This was the hardest part, I really saw my pony as the guy who always had the right tool at hand (err... hoof)  - kind of a walking bag of holding, or even The Luggage from Discworld.  Looking over the abilities in the book I didn't see one like that however, and doing the "Felix the Cat"-style of having a transforming handbag or pulling things out of thin air like Bugs Bunny didn't seem to fit the tone of the game (which is fairly serious for being a children's game/cartoon).  So I settled on "Special Skill: Hauling" so he can carry really heavy loads (my thought was- if you can hitch him to it he can pull it) which will let him carry around his cart (since at this point I had the idea that he went everywhere pulling a cart, which had folding kite wings so he could fly with it).

5th- Choose a Quirk
    Every pony has a quirk, some character trait that tends to get them in trouble or complicate their lives (like Allergy, Bossy or Forgetful).

I went with "Naive," he wants to be helpful so much that he often gets taken advantage of or tries too hard and makes things worse.

6th- Choose/ Draw Your Cutie Mark and Portrait
    The last decision is what your pony looks like, and your "cutie mark" is a special image that describes your character (from the little I've seen of the show).

His Cutie Mark is a bucket with wings, which came from how he used to always carry around a bucket in his teeth as a young colt, and he'd carry things for people in it.  I managed to draw a sad approximation of it that I won't reproduce here.  He's a boy pony, and tall and thin but stronger than he looks.  He's got a bark blue coat and a white mane with light brown eyes.

Final steps
    Those are all the choices you have to make to create a pony, the last thing to do is record the other fixed numbers and fill out a character sheet.  Buying equipment is described as being somewhat optional, but since my character concept was to have a lot of stuff, I went ahead and got all his gear.


Just-in-time, aka "Justin"
a Level 1  Pegasus  of Generosity  who's Naive
Body: d6  Mind: d4  Charm: d6  -  Stamina: 10
Talents-  Fly: d6,  Special Skill: Hauling/Carry d6
Cutie Mark: a bucket with wings
Appearance: tall and thin, other ponies tend to comment on how he's stronger than he looks.  Has a dark blue coat and white mane with light brown eyes.  Always in the middle of things, looking for a way to help out - he doesn't like to be alone or useless.  Goes everywhere he can with his cart full of stuff, which he keeps to give to other people when they need something.
Bits (money): 0 [tends to spend it as soon as he gets it to buy gifts for people or have more stuff on hand]
Equipment-
    Cart  [has folding kite wings so he can fly with it]
    Raincoat and Boots  [for himself when alone, but he'll loan them out and get wet if somebody else needs them]
    Food: Simple Meal x9  [in case anybody gets hungry, and for any long-distance flights]
    Food: Snack x3  [usually given away to anyone looking peckish, or maybe candy for kids, I'm not sure]
    Saddlebags  [yeah, he has the cart, but you can never have too many bags]
    Rope  [a million uses]
    Ponybalm x5  [kind of a minor healing potion in the game, for anyone who gets hurt]
    Lamp  [good for dealing with the dark]
    Party kit  [in case anyone wants to celebrate, I'm guessing this includes a small tent which could have its own uses]
    Cooking kit  [goes with throwing a party]
    Book of stories  [in case anybody is bored, to loan or read to others]
    Guidebook to Equestria  [the world is a big place, so he has a guide to geography and customs to get around and get along, how accurate it is is something the GM can have fun with]
    Bucket  [the same one he used to carry around as a colt]
    Cleaning kit  [for cleaning up after the party above]
    Grooming kit  [important to look good, and really helpful after any long-distance flights]
    Instrument: Harmonica  [to pass the time or entertain others, I'm assuming he knows how to play it since there is no skill or talent for playing, and having him be bad at it might be funny, but doesn't quite seem like the character]
    Clock  [good to be on time]
    Shovel  [another generally useful tool]


Some Thoughts
    Mechanically this is one of the simplest characters I've ever made, and it's also one of my favorite characters.  I really like the character creation for this game.  It's focused on teamwork, the whole book subtly reinforces that you're going to be part of a team, and some of the mechanics like your Element of Harmony and Tokens of Friendship (which I didn't list since you get them from your party) - but with that it has a focus on your nature.  A typical RPG is about making a party, a team (well, a good RPG in my opinion) but the focus is on your role in that team: tank, healer, damage type stuff.  Here, your role in the team is your nature, like Justin's "Generosity."  While it would be possible to make a party of ponies that were all the same, you'd be missing a vital part of the game in how the characters' different natures bring different approaches to solving problems (and create different complications).  I've watched just a couple of episodes of the cartoon since making this character, and really like how it has that character-focus instead of a typical RPGs ability-focus.
    Also, that focus on a character's nature and the simple mechanical choices made it really easy for me to concentrate on my character concept.  I actually feel like I know this character, his backstory and how to play him, better than most other RPG characters I've ever made.  Not having a million choices and rulebooks and sourcebooks and class guides and numbers to add kept the importance on the character.  I do prefer more mechanically developed games, so I'm not sure how it's going to feel to actually play the character (if I ever do), but for character creation it was great to keep it simple.
    I didn't know what to expect before making this character, but I'm amazed now that I was able to create such a detailed character so quickly, and one that seems like he'd fit well in a party and has some potential to be fun to play and explore.  I tip my hat to the developers of Tails of Equestria for making a great system to create characters, and one that I'm taking some notes from for my own games.