Owen K.C. Stephens

This is the second section of  Part Eleven of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints.  You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and  share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.

Our next feat is Dazzling Display, which can again work exactly as written in Starfinder, but again isn’t in Starfinder. We need to ask ourselves why, and that means we need to examine how demoralize is sued in Starfinder. So, it’s useful to do a search through a complete Starfidner SRD for “demoralize” to see all the ways that task is used in various other abilities. This is important because, for example, we find in AP #12 there’s the Improved Demoralize feat, which lets you demoralize as a move action. That’s actually extremely powerful, and it cuts a lot of design space off for Dazzling Display.

We also discover the envoy class has the expertise talent “menacing gaze,” which allows you to demoralize a group of foes, which is the core concept behind Dazzling Display. And soldiers have shock and awe as a fighting style, which lets you burn Resolve to demoralize all foes within 60 feet. So, we can’t duplicate those effect without stealing some of the special abilities for those classes, and we can’t allow you to do it more quickly without overwriting Improved Demoralize. (I checked all the references for game uses of demoralize of course, from star knights to the ferocity blazon, these are just the most relevant issues.)

But what we don’t find is a demoralize critical hit effect. And that gives us some design space.

DAZZLING DISPLAY (Combat)
Your most spectacular attacks are frightful to behold.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus
Benefit: You can add the demoralize critical hit effect to any attack you make that is a critical hit. The effect allows you to immediately make an Intimidate check to demoralize your target and all foes within 30 feet of your target. If your base attack bonus is greater than your Intimidate bonus, you may use it for the demoralize check. You may add this critical hit effect in addition to any other critical hit effect or effects the attack can normally benefit from. This critical hit effect applies to creature immune to critical hits and is not negated by things which negate critical hit effects, but does not apply to creatures immune to mind-affecting effects. This is a emotion, fear effect.

Moving on to Deadly Aim, we see it has the same issues as Combat Expertise in how it interacts with Starfinder’s combat math. Looking at some solutions, we see sniper rifles have some special rules, which maybe we can co-opt to match the flavor of Deadly Aim, without breaking the game’s math (though it also won’t be as broadly useful a feat, which is fine as long as it has good utility for the characters most likely to take it).

DEADLY AIM (Combat)
When you take time to aim, your accuracy is exceptional.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with sniper weapons.
Benefit: You can take a move action to aim with a ranged weapon as if it had the sniper weapon special property. This allows you to treat it’s range increment as being 50% longer. If you make an attack with a weapon that does have the sniper weapon special property, when you take a move action to aim with it you gain a +1 bonus to the next attack roll you make with it during the same round.

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This is the second section of  Part Eleven of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints.  You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and  share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.

We’re chewing through feats at a good pace now, and running into many fewer that refer to rules that just don’t exist in Starfinder. but we also need to make sure that even if a feat can be adapted directly, we are doing good thematic conversions as well. And that brings us to Combat Expertise and Command Undead.

So, once again, Combat Expertise works as written in Starfinder… which leads to ask why it isn’t IN Starfinder? When so much of Starfinder is clearly based on PF, and so many feats are adapted over, why was this one left behind?

A careful analysis shows the answer is: math.

Starfinder combat math is different from PF, despite so much of the system being built on the same base mechanics. Part of this is because Starfinder replaced iterative attacks with increases in damage as you gain levels. But part of it is because what bonuses are given out are more tightly controlled. We CAN introduce new bonuses on top of those–they game mechanics will still produce results that make sense to players–but doing so begins warping the system in a way that is going to make play results unpredictable.

If we can avoid that, we want to.

But since we know Starfinder has rules for making multiple attacks a -4 to both, and has rules for giving up attacks to gain a +4 bonus to AC, maybe we can create a new option that allows a player to take the same penalties as a full defense and multiple attacks in a round, but still gives them one attack and some movement. It’ll only be useful for corner-case tactics, but it’s also optional. If players can’t figure out a way to make this useful (mostly likely with a high-Dex energy-weapon optimized soldier when facing a horde of lower-CR foes), they just don’t take this feat.

And it’s clearly superior to JUST taking a full defense action, so it has its uses. It’s the kind of thing someone with expertise in combat might take as a 7th or 9th feat. In fact, since not a lot of Int builds are combat focused, let’s just slap a +9 attack bonus onto the prerequisites, to make it clear this isn’t designed for 1st level characters.

COMBAT EXPERTISE (Combat)
You can increase your defense at the expense of your accuracy and mobility.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +9.
Benefit: As a full action you can choose to take a –8 penalty on attack rolls to gain a +4 bonus to your Armor Class and make a single attack. You may choose to take a guarded step as part of this action. You cannot take attacks of opportunity. You cannot combine this with any other action that increases AC. The effects of this feat last until your next turn.

Okay, that brings us to Command Undead. We could just make this a new option off the healing channel connection power, but that means we’re saying healers make the best undead controllers and that feels… wrong. The devastator and shadow mystic connections feel more appropriate, so…

COMMAND UNDEAD
Using foul powers of necromancy, you can command undead creatures, making them into your servants.
Prerequisites: Mystic (devastator or shadow connection) level 5.
Benefit: As a standard action, you can expend one Resolve Point to enslave undead within 30 feet. Undead receive a Will save to negate the effect at your normal connection power DC.  Undead that fail their saves fall under your control, obeying your commands to the best of their ability, as if under the effects of control undead. Intelligent undead receive a new saving throw each day to resist your command. As long as you are controlling any of these undead, you cannot recover the Resolve Point used activate this feat. You can control any number of undead, so long as their total levels do not exceed your mystic level. If an undead creature is under the control of another creature, you must make an opposed Charisma check whenever your orders conflict.

PATREON
Like all my blog posts, this is brought to you by the wonderful patrons of my Patreon! I’m happy to do this kind of Practical TTRPG Designer masterclass free to the public… but it’s only possible for me to take the time to do so if people join my Patreon and help me have the free time to write these things!

This is a Part Eleven of a series of articles looking at creating a set of Starfinder feats under specific constraints.  You can read along as we convert every feat in the PF core rulebook to Starfinder (and  share my thoughts on that process, as a developer and writer)— or you can just look at the finished feats (as they are written) here.

There often comes a time in any big project where I feel I have gained momentum–most of the big design challenges are settled, I have gotten very familiar with the details of the rulesets involved, and the words just flow more easily. Once I hit this point, it’s time to just maintain a good pace and work on getting the project finished without adding any more complications than I need to, but also make sure I don;t get complacent.

So, the next feat we need to adapt is Catch Off-Guard which… works perfectly in Starfinder. There’s absolutely nothing you HAVE to do to make this feat SF compliant… but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we *should* change. having momentum also means making sure we don’t tear past something without taking a moment to consider the implications of its rules design.

Unarmed opponents are less common in Starfinder, the flat-footed condition is tied into a lot of class builds already, and damage-per-round is calculated using Weapon Specialization and increasing damage dice for higher-level weapons rather than multiple attacks per round. Also, this seems like a feat operatives would want (much as rogues are more interested in the PF version), so we want them to find it more useful.

CATCH OFF-GUARD (Combat)
Foes are surprised by your skilled use of unorthodox and improvised weapons.
Benefit: You do not suffer any penalties for using an improvised melee weapon. You may add half your level to damage dealt with such weapons as a special form of Weapon Specialization (and in place of any other weapon specialization bonus), and treat such weapons as having the operative weapon special property.
Normal: You take a –4 penalty on attack rolls made with an improvised weapon and never add damage from Weapon Specialization.

That brings us to Channel Smite, which again applies to a game mechanic that doesn’t exist in Starfinder. But the Harm Undead feat that allows healing connection mystics to use healing energy to harm undead clearly serves the same function as channel, so we can adapt from there. In this case, there’s no need to build a complex rules subsystem, we just want to make sure the details work well in Starfinder’s game environment.

CHANNEL SMITE (Combat)
You can channel your mystic energy through a melee weapon you wield.
Prerequisite: Harm Undead, healing channel connection power, mystic level 1st.
Benefit: Before you make an attack roll, as part of the same action you can choose to expend your healing channel to add its value to the attack as bonus damage that only applies to undead. The damage applies to any undead hit by the attack. This does not apply to any attack that does not require an attack roll (though it does apply to area attacks that also require attack rolls, such as most grenades). The undead can attempt a Will save to reduce this bonus damage by half, at your usual connection power DC.

It may seem like we’re still at the beginning of this process since we’re still in feats beginning with a C, but given we’ve done all the metamagic feats, all the critical feats, and all the item crafting feats, we’ve actually made major progress towards being done. It may not be the beginning of the end of this project, but we’ve definitely hit the end of the beginning.

PATREON
This series of posts about my specific game writing and development process (along with concrete examples and Starfinder feats) is — like all my blog posts — is only possible if people join my Patreon, help me have the free time to write these things, and let me know what you want to see!