Embarking on an adventure in the Starfall Galaxy begins with crafting your unique character. This guide will walk you through the essential steps of character creation and explain how your character grows in power as they gain levels.
Character Creation: Forging Your Cosmic Persona
Creating a character for the Starfall Galaxy involves a series of choices that define who your character is, what they can do, and how they fit into the vast cosmos.
Step 1: Create a Concept
What sort of character do you want to play? The answer to this question might be as simple as “a starship pilot,” or as complicated as “a kasatha seer raised on a generation ship far from their ancestral home world.” Consider your character’s personality, sketch out a few details about their past, and think about how and why they adventure.
Ancestry, Background, Class, or Details
If one of Starfall’s character ancestries, backgrounds, or classes particularly intrigues you, it’s easy to build a character concept around these options. Each ancestry also has several heritages that might refine your concept further; Some heritages, known as versatile heritages, can even be applied to any ancestry. Additionally, the game has many backgrounds to choose from, representing your character’s upbringing, hobby, or profession. Building a character around a specific ancestry, background, or class can be a fun way to interact with the galaxy’s lore.
Faith
Perhaps you’d like to play a character who is a devout follower of a specific deity. The peoples of the galaxy follow myriad faiths and philosophies. Your character might be so drawn to a particular faith that you decide they should be a disciple or mystic of that deity; they might instead be a lay worshipper who applies their faith’s teachings to daily life, or a skeptic cursed with the church’s blessing.
Your Allies
You might want to coordinate with other players when forming your character concept. Your characters could have something in common already; they are travelers from the same home world, or they could work together as part of the same faction. You might discuss mechanical aspects with the other players, creating characters whose combat abilities complement each other. It can be helpful for a party to include characters who deal damage, characters who can absorb damage, and characters who can heal and support their allies.
Step 2: Start Building Attribute Modifiers
Your character’s attribute modifiers each start at +0, and as you select your ancestry, background, and class, you’ll apply attribute boosts, which increase a modifier by 1, and attribute flaws, which decrease a modifier by 1. At this point, just note a +0 in each attribute modifier and familiarize yourself with the rules for attribute boosts and flaws on page 23. This is also a good time to identify which attribute modifiers will be most important to your character; for instance, if you want to play a dashing space pirate captain, you might want to focus on a character with a high Dexterity attribute (to ensure they’re good with Piloting and Stealth) who also has a bit of Charisma (to fast-talk the authorities if they get caught).
Step 3: Select Your Ancestry
Your Ancestry defines your character's species or race within the Starfall Galaxy. Each ancestry has a unique history, culture, and set of innate abilities shaped by their evolution and interaction with cosmic forces like the Rift and Mana.
Select a heritage from those available within that ancestry, further defining the traits your character was born with
Assign any free attribute boosts and decide whether to take any voluntary flaws.
Choose an ancestry feat, representing an ability your hero learned at an early age.
Considerations: Choose an ancestry that resonates with your character concept. Do you want to be a nimble, void-winged Sarcesian, a deeply empathic Dracosmyr, or a hyper-intelligent Cerebral Nexus?
Step 4: Choose Your Background
Your Background represents your character's life before they became an adventurer. It provides a glimpse into their past experiences, training, and the circumstances that led them to their current path.
What it determines: Two skill proficiencies (one trained, one trained in a specific Lore skill), a skill feat, and two attribute boosts (one predetermined, one free).
Considerations: Choose a background that complements your class and ancestry, or one that provides interesting narrative hooks for your character's personal story.
Step 5: Choose Your Class
Your Class represents your character's primary profession, training, and role within an adventuring party. It defines your core abilities, combat prowess, and how you interact with the world. Starfall Galaxy features a flexible class system, enabling a wide range of archetypes, from cunning diplomats and expert pilots to powerful psychics and resilient warriors.
What it determines: Your Hit Points gained per level, your starting proficiencies in weapons, armor, and saving throws, and a unique set of class features that unlock as you level up.
Considerations: Think about the kind of playstyle you enjoy. Do you prefer direct combat, subtle manipulation, technological expertise, or wielding cosmic energies? Your class choice is fundamental to your character's capabilities.
Step 6: Apply Remaining Ability Points
Your character's core Ability Scores (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) define their fundamental aptitudes. These scores are determined by a combination of your Class, ancestry, background, and then additional "free" boosts.
Process:
Apply the boosts and flaws from your Class, Ancestry and Background.
Apply four Free Ability Boosts to any four different ability scores.
Considerations: Prioritize abilities that are important for your chosen class and playstyle. For example, a combatant might prioritize Strength or Dexterity, while a psychic might focus on Intelligence or Charisma.
Step 7: Select Initial Feats
Feats are special abilities that grant your character unique capabilities, ranging from combat maneuvers and skill expertise to magical talents and social advantages. At 1st level, you'll select several feats:
Ancestry Feat: One feat from your chosen ancestry's 1st-level options.
Background Skill Feat: One skill feat from your chosen background.
Class Feats: Specific feats determined by your class at 1st level.
General Feat: One general feat of your choice.
Skill Feat: One skill feat of your choice.
Considerations: Choose feats that enhance your character's strengths, fill gaps in their abilities, or provide interesting role-playing opportunities.
Step 8: Purchase Starting Equipment
Your character begins with a certain amount of starting wealth, which you use to purchase weapons, armor, and essential gear.
Starting Wealth: Typically, characters begin with 150 Cinders (one and a half Yoms).
Equipment Categories:
Weapons: Melee and ranged weapons, often with special properties.
Armor: Light, medium, or heavy armor, providing defensive bonuses.
Gear: Tools, adventuring supplies, communication devices, and personal items.
Considerations: Ensure your character has appropriate weapons and armor for their class. Don't forget essential adventuring gear, such as communication units, medical kits, and personal effects.
Step 9: Calculate Modifiers
With most of the big decisions for your character made, it’s time to calculate the modifiers for each of the following statistics. If your proficiency rank for a statistic is trained, expert, master, or legendary, your bonus equals your character’s level plus another number based on the rank (2, 4, 6, and 8, respectively). If your character is untrained, your proficiency bonus is +0.
Perception
Your character’s Perception modifier measures how alert they are, and is equal to their proficiency bonus in Perception plus their Wisdom modifier.
Saving Throws
For each kind of saving throw, add your character’s Fortitude, Reflex, or Will proficiency bonus (as appropriate) plus the attribute modifier associated with that kind of saving throw. For Fortitude saving throws, use your character’s Constitution modifier. For Reflex saving throws, use your character’s Dexterity modifier. For Will saving throws, use your character’s Wisdom modifier. Then add in any bonuses or penalties from abilities, feats, or items that always apply (but not modifiers, bonuses, or penalties that apply only in certain situations). Record this number on the line for that saving throw.
Melee and Ranged Strikes
Next to where you’ve written your character’s melee and ranged weapons, calculate the modifier to Strike with each weapon and how much damage that Strike deals. The modifier for a Strike is equal to your character’s proficiency bonus with the weapon plus an attribute modifier (usually Strength for melee Strikes and Dexterity for ranged Strikes). You also add any item bonus from the weapon and any other permanent bonuses or penalties. You also need to calculate how much damage each weapon’s Strike deals. Melee weapons usually add your character’s Strength modifier to damage rolls, while ranged weapons might add some or all of your character’s Strength modifier, depending on the weapon’s traits.
Skills
In the second box to the right of each skill on your character sheet, there’s an abbreviation to remind you of the attribute modifier for that skill. For each skill in which your character is trained, add your proficiency bonus for that skill (typically +3 for a 1st-level character) to the indicated attribute’s modifier, as well as any other applicable bonuses and penalties, to determine the total modifier for that skill. For skills your character is untrained in, use the same method, but your proficiency bonus is +0.
Step 10: Finishing Details
Edict and Anathema
You can choose to take on edicts and anathema to reinforce your character’s beliefs and guide how they’d react in certain situations. Edicts are behaviors your personal philosophy or code encourages. Anathema are the opposite: actions contrary to your point of view and violations of your personal code. For example, you might follow an edict to keep records of any planet you visit, or you might consider it anathema to erase data or conceal information from the public. For most characters, these are entirely optional, though it’s best to consider taking some on as you create your character to hone in on how they think. Ancestry entries list edicts and anathema prevalent among their communities.
Changing Edicts and Anathema
Edicts and anathema can change during play as a character’s beliefs evolve, or as you realize that your character’s actions reflect a different set of values than you once thought. In most cases, you can just change a relevant edict or anathema and continue playing.
Port of Call
Your character’s port of call is a place where they spend downtime between adventures or have adopted as a temporary home. This might be a world or space station they spend a lot of time on, or even a generation ship.
Home World
Your character’s home world is the planet, satellite, or starship where they were born or grew up.
Devotion
Across the myriad of cultures that habit the Sundered Cosmos, Alignment is a complex and nuanced combination of core values, world views, and life goals. Good or Evil are not monolithic entities that can be represented on two poles; each devotion below has the ability to manifest both good and evil.
Devotion is a quick way to characterize an individual’s personality, morality, and predilections. Devotion is encompassed in five core values: Peace (white), Perfection (blue), Power (black), Freedom (red), and Acceptance (Green). These values are not mutually exclusive; however in characters, one tends to assert itself over the others these dominant values are the ones you identify as your character’s devotion.
Deity
Write down the deity your character worships, if any. Your character might worship several deities as part of a personal pantheon. You might instead choose a philosophy or decide your character is an atheist.
Age
Decide your character’s age and note it on the third page of the character sheet. You can play a character of whatever age you like. There aren’t any mechanical adjustments to your character for being older, but you might want to take it into account when considering your starting attribute modifiers and future advancement. Particularly young characters can change the tone of some of the game’s threats, so it’s recommended that characters are at least young adults.
Gender and Pronouns
Characters of all genders are equally likely to become adventurers. Record your character’s gender, if applicable, and their pronouns on the third page of the character sheet.
Class DC
A class DC sets the difficulty for certain abilities granted by your character’s class. This DC equals 10 plus their proficiency bonus for their class DC (+3 for most 1st-level characters) plus the modifier for the class’s key attribute modifier.
Hero Points
Your character usually begins each game session with 1 Hero Point, and you can gain additional Hero Points during sessions by performing heroic deeds or enthusiastic gameplay. Your character can use Hero Points to gain certain benefits, such as staving off death or rerolling a d20.
Armor Class
Your character’s Armor Class represents how difficult they are to hit in combat. To calculate your AC, add 10 plus your character’s Dexterity modifier (up to their armor’s Dexterity modifier cap; page 245), plus their proficiency bonus with their armor, plus their armor’s item bonus to AC and any other permanent bonuses and penalties.
Bulk
Your character’s maximum Bulk determines how much weight they can comfortably carry. If they’re carrying a total amount of Bulk that exceeds 5 plus their Strength modifier, they are encumbered. A character can’t carry a total amount of Bulk that exceeds 10 plus their Strength modifier. The Bulk your character is carrying equals the sum of all of their items; keep in mind that 10 light items make up 1 Bulk.
Leveling Up: Growth and Evolution in the Galaxy
As your character gains experience and overcomes challenges, they will advance in level, unlocking new powers and becoming more formidable. The leveling-up process is a structured way to represent this growth.
1. Gain a Level
Your character gains a new level when they accumulate enough Experience Points (XP) or at the GM's discretion (often referred to as "milestone leveling").
2. Increase Hit Points
Each time you gain a level, you add your class's Hit Point gain to your maximum Hit Points. This represents your character becoming tougher and more resilient.
3. Gain Class Features
Your chosen class provides new abilities, proficiencies, and sometimes even spells or special resources as you level up. These features enhance your character's core role and expand their options in combat, exploration, and social interaction.
4. Gain Skill Increases
At certain levels, you gain Skill Increases, allowing you to improve your proficiency rank in various skills (e.g., from Trained to Expert, Expert to Master, Master to Legendary). This reflects your character honing their abilities in specific areas.
5. Gain Ancestry Feats
Every 4 levels (at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level), you gain a new Ancestry Feat from your chosen ancestry's available options. These feats reflect your character's continued development of their racial or species-specific abilities.
6. Gain Skill Feats
Every 2 levels (at 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.), you gain a new Skill Feat. These feats provide specialized uses for your skills, making you more effective in non-combat situations or granting unique skill-based actions.
7. Gain General Feats
Every odd level (at 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.), you gain a new General Feat. These are broad feats not tied to a specific class, ancestry, or skill, offering versatile benefits that can enhance various aspects of your character.
8. Gain Ability Boosts
Every 5 levels (at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level), you gain four Ability Boosts. You can apply these boosts to any four different ability scores, further increasing your character's fundamental aptitudes.
9. Update Proficiencies
As you level up, your proficiency ranks in certain areas (such as weapons, armor, and saving throws) automatically increase based on your class. This represents your character becoming more skilled and experienced with their primary tools and defenses.
By following these steps, you'll create a dynamic and evolving character ready to face the myriad challenges and wonders of the Starfall Galaxy!
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