So, obviously I’ve been thinking a lot about Starfinder-compatible material that could go up here. It has to be material I thought off on my own time (rather than while doing Paizo work), and that I honestly believe is not a good match for any Paizo product. Otherwise, I’d need to reserve it for Paizo. Also, it has to be based only on products already available to the general public or that a special accommodation was made for. (The existing RGG Starfinder-compatible products were written using advance materials Paizo made available to numerous third-party publishers—RGG included—otherwise RGG couldn’t have even begun work on Starfinder-compatible material until today).

That’s a fairly narrow path to walk, and I take the good-faith parts of it seriously. I’m pretty well the only person who knows what goes on in my head, but that just means I have to hold myself to the highest standard for this. My mental firewalls must err on the side of saving the best ideas for the company paying me specifically to guide rules design for the game, so anything that shows up here is going to be something built off a third-party-publisher’s rules, or too weird to wrongly themed for the official campaign setting, or entirely experimental.

Once place I think there’s some interesting design space is updating magic items and options from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game to the Starfinder Roleplaying game. There are lots of ways to do that, and some of them aren’t the right tone for what the official campaign setting is shooting for. As an example of something I’m comfortable publishing myself, let’s look at the thing I call the “Weasel Gun.”

Pistol of Tricks

Name  Level  Price   Range Capacity Usage          Bulk    Special

Minor Gray     1          300 credits      20        1          L          (tiny weasel)

Standard Gray 3          1.5k credits     20        1          L          (tiny bat, rat, or weasel)

Major Gray     5          3k credits        20        1          L          (tiny bat, rat, squid, or weasel)

Minor Rust     7          7k credits        40        2          L          (small wolverine)

Standard Rust 9          14k credits      40        2          L          (medium boar, small eagle or wolverine)

Major Rust      11        25k credits      40        2          L          (medium boar, small eagle, octopus, or wolverine)

Minor Tan       13        45k credits      100      10        L          (medium bear or large rhino)

Standard Tan  15        90k credits      100      10        L          (medium bear or vulture, or large rhino)

Major Tan       17        180k credits    100      10        L          (medium bear, shark, or vulture, or large orca, rhino, or roc)

Pistol of Tricks Description

Pistols of tricks are magic uncategorized small arms that summon “trick monsters,” magic constructs that are designed to emulate the appearance and actions of animals. When fired, the magic device converts the energy of its battery into a temporary kinetic manifestation. These “trick monsters” attack whatever they are closest to when summoned. If you successfully hit a creature’s EAC when you fire, that creature is the exclusive target of the trick monster (even once the creature is dead or dying), and the trick monster seeks that creature out if it moves or hides. On a miss the trick monster scatters as a thrown weapon, and attacks the creature nearest to it when it arrives (determine randomly if it is equally close to multiple creatures).

Trick monsters remain for 1 round, plus 1 round per 2 levels of the pistol of tricks that summoned them. It attacks at the end of your turn each round, and can flank or move but doesn’t make combat maneuvers or tack actions other than melee attacks and movement. A pistol of tricks can normally only maintain a single trick monster at a time, so firing a second time ends any previously summoned trick monsters. On a critical hit, the pistol of tricks actually summons two trick monsters of the same type, that attack the same target.

Each pistol of tricks lists which trick monsters it can summon and the size of each. Trick monsters can be targeted by anything that can target an animal or magical construct. You select from the available trick monsters with each attack. The trick monster summoned by a pistol of tricks has game stats based on the level of the weapon used to summon it, as follows:
BAB: Level    Melee damage: 1d6/2 levels (minimum 1d3)

EAC: 9 + level           KAC: 11+ level          Saving Throws: ½ Level

Move: 30 feet + level*           HP: 5 x level  Perception: Level

*Additional movement only counts in +5 ft. increments. So a trick monster goes from 30 to a 35 ft. move when fired from a 5^th level weapon, to 40 ft. when fired from a 10^th level pistol, and so on. Terrestrial creature have a land speed, flying creatures a fly speed with average movement, and aquatic creatures a swim speed.

Thus the trick weasel of the 1^st level Least Gray Pistol of tricks (the iconic “Weasel Gun”) is:
Size Tiny
BAB: +1         Melee Damage: 1d3
EAC: 10         KAC: 11         Saving Throws: +0
Move: 30 Feet            HP: 5  Perception: +1

There are lots of other magic items that get weird and interesting if you consider updating them to a high-tech science-fantasy campaign world. Is a belt of dwarvenkind now an ancient relic, and is there a belt of veskkind to go with it? Should there be a spacesuit of useful items? Eyes of the star eagle?

Patreon

I have a patreon, and it supports these posts. And I thought a belt of vesk-kind sounds cool, so i wrote one up and posted it there for my patrons.

Check it out!