Subsystems and You 15: Building Mechs
(art by Dekus on DeviantArt)
Earlier this week, we talked about the first of two big “build your own really cool vehicle” in Starfinder 1st Edition, and now we’re talking about the other! (Yes I know custom vehicles are also a thing, but I wouldn’t call that subsystem “big”).
With Starfinder covering pretty much all the grab-bag of different subgenres of sci-fi, we expect to see starships in most of them. Mechs, however, being giant robotic vehicles, are not as common, and mostly show up stories that revolve around them specifically. War stories, Monster-of-the-Week plots around defending a world or galaxy from great evil, political thrillers where warfare in giant robots is only part of it… you get the idea.
Prior to Tech Revolution, Starfinder toyed with the idea of mechs before, in the form of some of their early power armors being much, much larger than the user. But while those were a form of armor and had the whole “servos responding to the movement of the wearer”, true mechs instead are piloted similar to vehicles (at least, flavor-wise, the vehicular combat rules are pretty different).
Today I’ll be focusing on how the system for making your own mechs works. (I’ll save Starship Combat and Mech Combat for future entries)
So let’s have a look!
Much like the starship building rules, characters are not meant to pay for their desired mech in credits or UPBs. Rather, they are assigned to them by the GM’s narrative, so the players instead have the currency of build points to work with to customize them as they see fit. However! Mech build points are not a flat number derived from average party level, but rather, those build points are instead divided between each member of the party.
This is because unlike the starship rules where it is assumed that the party has one ship to share between them unless stated otherwise, the party can either pool their points into one big mech they all pilot together, or into individual smaller mechs, or anything in between! However, while having four or more mechs at level one is a neat idea, you probably will be doubling up for the first few levels so that the party can actually have a mech tier.
As a side note, there are also guidelines for playing transforming or combining mecha as well, the former basically letting you purchase a vehicle credits and through build points make it a mecha as well, shifting between forms as needed. Meanwhile, combiner mechs are essentially a whole other stat block that the party only can use when they combine their mechs together. Both systems have the baseline assumption that the players should transform or combine out of combat, at most just before initiative begins, so as to not hassle the GM with that.
In any case, let’s get down to actually building the mechs! Firstly, you have to pick a frame and power core. Frames determine the basics of the mech like base hp, the number of weapon mounts, built-in movement speeds, and any special abilities that the mech might have. Meanwhile, the power core determines how much energy it can store and generate to fuel some of the more impressive feats it can perform with certain other limbs, weapons, and the like. Some power cores even have interesting quirks of their own.
Then we have limbs, which come in all sorts of configurations, like being quadrupedal or having a massive hover engine underneath, while upper limbs are divided by what they’re specialized in, such as armor or being especially dexterous. Interestingly, the limbs can be played fast and loose with, so a quadrupedal mech might be able to stand on it’s hind legs, with the forelimbs effectively counting for the two arms as well.
Next is weapons, which include some new designs but are mostly supersized versions of existing weapons. Such weapons sometimes have a special attacks fueled by the power core’s reserves.
Then we have auxiliary systems, things like a cargo bay, deployable vehicle, cloaking tech, energy transfer systems that boost damage in response to losing shields, and so on.
Finally, leftover mech points can be spent to bolster the base stats with upgrades, making the machine tougher or faster.
And that’s more or less it. Mechs have plenty of special rules for their operation, but the build rules are robust enough to warrant an entry like this on their own, methinks.
That will be all for this week and this entry, so tun in next week for more character options!
