Character Gen

Roll 4d6, take the top 3, nine times. Take the 5 best and 1 worst score.
Core races are Androids, Humans, Kasatha (4 armed aliens), Lashunta (with 2 sub-varieties, both telepathic), Shirren (telepathic bug people), Vesk (lizard men), and Ysoki (rat people).

In addition to the base classes, you also get to select a Theme. Themes add +1 to an ability score and also some skill improvements/knowledges.

Hit Points: No longer rolled or Con based. Each race and class has listed HPs. At 1st level you get your race + class HPs. At subsequent levels you only get your class.

Stamina Points: Like Vitality Points from the old Star Wars d20, SPs are class-based and you gain your class # +Con mod each level. Damage goes to SPs first before HPs and generally they are easier/faster to recover.

Resolve Points: Can be spent to perform special actions, class abilities, as well as recover SPs and stabilize if dying. Calculated as half your level + your key stat mod (as set by your class).

Skills: Mostly the same as Pathfinder. Note there are no knowledge skills, this has been replaced by a singular skill called Culture. Culture rolls will probably happen a lot, FYI, with different DCs for different characters depending on your class, theme, backgrounds, professions, etc.

Starting wealth: 1,100 credits, now known as Federons. Items have a level, and players can generally buy items equal to their character level +1 or lower.

Carrying capacity: Bulk. Your character can comfortably carry/wear half your total strength score (round down) in bulk. Items listed as L bulk are less than 1. 10 L items = 1 bulk, increases at multiples of 10. Therefore 19 L bulk items is still only 1 bulk, but 20 = 2 bulk.

Attacks: Characters don't gain multiple attacks as they level. As a standard action, players can make 1 attack per round. As a full action you can still make the single attack or choose to make 2 attacks both at a -4 penalty.

Crits: Weapons no longer have a critical threat range. Natural 20s (if the total attack beats AC) score a crit. But also, see house rules below...




Starships:
Y'all start with a starship (to be built in session 1). There are 5 player roles on a ship:
Captain: actions require diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, etc.
Pilot: pilots the ship, requires piloting skill
Gunner: Fires weapons. Attack = d20+BAB or ranks in Pilot + Dex mod
Engineer: manages power systems and repairs ship. Engineering skill
Science Officer: runs shields and sensors: Computers skill.

Gunners can only fire 1 weapon per round regardless of how many a ship has, so if we have more than 5 players we could have multiple gunners. Or you can double up in Engineering and Science Officer roles and give each other bonuses.



Your Party:
Don't know y'alls alignment yet, but to ease the start of the game here's the situation: you all know each other, voluntarily work together, collectively own your ship, and work as 'independent contractors' taking various jobs. Most of these jobs are legit (shipping, passenger escorts, etc.) or low level criminal (simple smuggling, low-level piracy, etc.) but none of your criminal activities have been significant enough yet to put you on any one's radar or wanted lists. Yet...

Play as whatever alignment and morality you see fit but please try to be relatively compatible with each other and also have some reason in your character concept that your character would want to be part of such a group.


Very basic setting info:
(More details to be revealed as we begin to play)
Setting is based in the Pact Worlds, a solar system with 13 significant celestial bodies (10 planets, 1 station, 1 world-ship, and 1 populated asteroid belt. Plus there's cities on the sun, so I guess 14 locations total). Plus a few major moons.

The planet Golarion (on which Pathfinder takes place) is gone. Just... gone. No one knows why or where it went. Absalom Station was an orbital station around Golarion that remains and is the technological/economic center of the system.

Each plant of the Pact Worlds is self-governed. The 'pact' is a loose alliance between worlds to provide for common defense, interplanetary law enforcement, and promote relatively open trade.

The year is 317. Localized space flight has existed for hundreds of years, however, a collective amnesia which seems to have affected the entire galaxy disrupted recorded history. Everyone seems to have acted normally during this era, but no one knows for certain how long it lasted or what happened during this time. It is known as The Gap. It is during The Gap that Golarion disappeared.

Interstellar travel is only 314 years old. I'll explain that in a bit more detail when we play.

There are lots of factions and many have loose associations. If you have a specific motivation for your character let me know and maybe he will fit in a faction.

There are a number of cybernetic augmentations, biotech, and personal upgrades your characters could potentially afford. Also note weapons fusions and armor upgrade slots as ways to spend your money customizing your gear.








Zim's house rules to date:

1) Firing a Small Arms weapon in melee range (if you are proficient) does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

2) Ranged weapons with the special quality 'automatic' (as well as those with the term 'semi-automatic' in their name) can also be fired in semi-automatic mode. Firing in semi-auto still only rolls 1 attack at 1 target, however the attacker can choose to add anywhere from +1 to +3 to the roll at an additional ammunition cost of the chosen bonus x3. I.E. if you shoot at someone semi-auto +3, you make one attack roll at +3 but expend 10 rounds of ammo.

3) Location based damage: On a successful critical hit players can choose to forego the 2x damage to instead do regular damage to a specific location. DMs discretion as to the resulting penalties/conditions the victim will suffer based on damage sustained.

4) In the core rules some starship crew actions are locked until your character reaches a certain level. No more. All starship crew actions can be attempted at 1st level. The DCs will remain and are probably high, but you should be at least able to try damnit!

5) Size small characters get the +1 AC bonus they always used to get, because it looks like in the core book they don't, which is lame.



This seems like the kind of info I should be putting on Liam's new forum thingy, so I'll try to do that too.