Introduction
The Sarcesians are a literal spacefaring ancestry hailing from the Diaspora asteroid belt, descendants of two destroyed planets Damiar and Iovo. Often serving as pilots or navigators, Sarcesians love to travel and explore the vast cosmos. During these travels they tend to stick out by being blessed with brilliant energy wings and large size.
They have a truly novel ability to survive and maneuver effortlessly in the vacuum of space, thanks to their aforementioned energy wings, which can serve you well as a Starfinder. If you want to traverse the stars and find adventure in strange places as an oversized space butterfly, consider playing a Sarcesian.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Understanding RPGBOT’s Rating System
- Sarcesian Ancestry Traits
- Sarcesian Heritages
- Sarcesian Ancestry Feats
Understanding RPGBOT’s Rating System
RPGBOT uses a 4-tier rating scheme which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.
- : Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- : OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
- : Good options. Useful often.
- : Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
Sarcesian Ancestry Traits
- : 8 is the average value for ancestry hit points but, after a few levels, this number is far less important than your class HP, so don’t sweat it too much.
- : LARGE. Being Large can be good, but it can also be bad depending on where adventure leads you. Almost all of the drawbacks of being bigger stem from the Squeezing rules. The only drawback in combat is that you can technically be flanked by more creatures but this rarely matters.
- : 25 ft. is the standard speed.
- : With fixed boosts to Dexterity and Charisma and a fixed flaw of Strength, Sarcesians lean naturally towards ranged combat or spellcasting, but can also play well with a finesse melee weapon.
- : While most ancestries have Common, an Ancestral language, and a Regional or Planetary language, the Sarcesians drop the Regional language for an Ancestral sign language.
- : Nothing special here.
- : A Fly speed, but only in a Vacuum, is far better than being Untethered. If your adventures more often take place planetside, this won’t come up as much.
- : Similar to Energy Wings, being immune to space and vacuums for up to an hour might only matter if you’re actually adventuring in space. But if you are, this is pretty awesome.
Sarcesian Heritages
- (GG): In a campaign where you do expect to be in space for extended periods of time, Asteroid Hoppers quadruple their Suspended Respiration timer to four hours.
- (GG): This is a particularly interesting take on the ‘Large ancestry Medium sized heritage’ that is common with the Large ancestries. Instead of being Medium, you stay Large but count as Medium for fitting into tight spaces. Remember: Tight spaces are the main drawback of Large size.
- (GG): Trained in Diplomacy and the Group Impression skill feat. It’s not bad, but it competes with these other great options, and it’s only useful on a Face.
- (GG): Going from normal to Darkvision is pretty dramatic and novel. Usually it would only go to low light or need to start with low light. What makes this green instead of blue is determined by how much access you have to equipment that grants Darkvision, such as the Darkvision Capacitor augmentation.
- (GG): An innate Arcane Cantrip with a special restriction: It must have one of the Dark, Light, Vital, or Void traits. Also remember that Innate spells always key off Charisma unless a feature says otherwise and we have Charisma as a fixed Attribute Boost.
Sarcesian Ancestry Feats
Level 1
- (GG): Trained in Society. Cool. Multilingual. Also Cool. Worth an Ancestry Feat? Depends how much you want Society and more languages in your campaign.
- (GG): I would say that if you’re a pilot the +1 to Drive checks is alright but I’ve never seen anyone make a Maneuver in Flight check.
- (GG): An unarmed Agile Finesse attack that does 1d6 fire damage in the Flame weapon group. While fire isn’t the greatest, the fact that it’s not Brawling is interesting if you’re playing a Fighter in Starfinder because you can pair it with a Flame group ranged weapon and have the same Fighter proficiency boost on both. It’s very niche, but a cool niche. It would also be decent on a Monk, but that’s usually obvious when it comes to Ancestry unarmed attacks.
- (GG): Just opt out of falling damage forever.
- (GG): If somebody in your party doesn’t already have Detect Magic, this is kind of neat. I find that an unlikely, but plausible, scenario to be in, just so we’re clear. Arcane Sense could also get you Detect Magic, but Embrace the Magic doesn’t limit how much Detect Magic is Heightened.
- (GG): You have to be in an incredibly specific kind of adventure for any one of these lores to come up, but you do gain Additional Lore for three regions.
- (GG): So this feat can be read two ways, which is always great. First, Breath Control multiplies how long you can hold your breath by 25. For reference, by default you get 5 rounds times your Constitution modifier. This becomes 125 rounds times your Constitution modifier. With a modest +2 in Con, that’s 25 minutes. Now for the funny part: we don’t need to breathe for 10 minutes after exiting a Vacuum. Multiply that by 25. Now it’s 4 hours and 10 minutes. That may not be intended, but it sure is funny.
- (GG): Your wings, which can only be used in a Vacuum, emit light. Now, there are later feats that allow using the Wings in an atmosphere, in which case, I would still look for another, less costly method to deal with Darkness.
- (GG): Arcana. Piloting. and Additional Lore for Sarcesian Lore. These ancestry lore feats are always very niche and we have so many good options. Arcana also isn’t an easy choice for the Sarcesian without an Intelligence Boost.
- (GG): Familiarity and Critical Specialization with the Sniper weapon group and weapons with the Sarcesian trait. There aren’t any Sarcesian weapons at time of writing, but the Sniper Critical Specialization should look familiar to Pick users. +2 damage per weapon damage die, and the few Sniper weapons we’ve seen so far are also Fatal. Time for some really big critical hits.
- (GG): Trained in Religion and a +1 to Recall Knowledge on Undead creatures. Good in the right campaign.
- (GG): If you’re playing the Darkvision heritage, then also picking up Greater Darkvision is pretty good.
Level 5
- (GG): Use your Vacuum Fly speed once a day for 10 minutes in an atmosphere. This is a prerequisite for the permanent Fly speed feat at 9th level.
- (GG): Once per minute, Hide then Sneak twice for two Actions. If you like to Hide, this is pretty good action compression.
- (GG): Resist 5 to a common energy type is not bad. It doesn’t scale, but it is a prerequisite for a later feat, and 5 is plenty to prevent most Splash Damage and a lot of Persistent Damage.
- (GG): As a Reaction after taking Fire damage you can emit light and resist environmental Cold effects. It’s thematic, but also kind of eh.
- (GG): This is similar to the pre-errata Minotaur feat Stretching Reach. As an Interact action, add the Reach trait to a two-handed weapon that doesn’t already have Reach. Reach is less important in a world where practically everyone has guns. Could potentially move to green if it gets the same errata as Minotaur, changing it to a Stance instead of an extra Interact action.
- (GG): Usually, an incredibly specific Lore skill is a heavy investment for a very narrow purpose, but being able to gain Additional Lore for any one thing each day can be very useful. Heading to a new planet you’ve never heard of? Choose “That Planet” Lore today and be the David Attenborough of that world for the day, keeping your whole party informed about the dangers and boons to be found there.
- (GG): As if there weren’t enough reasons to pick the Squeezing heritage, a Reaction Escape attempt can really save your life. Imagine getting to Escape a Grab right before the monster has a chance to use Swallow Whole with their third Action.
- (GG): For those campaigns that are like 60% or more in deep space, removing your time limit for Suspended Respiration really cuts down on your space suit budget.
- (GG): It’s a niche on top of a niche. You have to regularly fight Undead, also take Undead Scholar, for a small damage bonus, and then if you critically succeed on a Recall Knowledge check, you can also use Critical Specialization effects against those Undead. So, it’s for someone who wants to use Strikes but doesn’t have Critical Specialization already but only against a specific category of creatures after already getting a critical Recall Knowledge. It’s just too narrow and hard to use, and the benefit is not nearly good enough.
- (GG): It’s like having a buckler raised for a minute each day against one specific creature. It’s not a bad effect, the frequency is just too low.
Level 9
- (GG): Flight is awesome. Even in a world where most people have guns, some people don’t.
- (GG): I can see this being useful if some amount of your party needs Light to see. Doubling the radii of all Lights you hold is pretty funny.
- (GG): Innate spells can be a little unwieldy if you’re not already a caster and these spells all key off of your Charisma, being innate and all. So they could be useful additions if you’re already a Charisma caster and don’t have access to them. Narrow, but not impossible.
- (GG): If you take Energy Shielding and are targeted by a ranged attack that deals the energy type you chose to resist, gain +2 Circumstance bonus to AC against that attack. It’s a hyper-conditional Nimble Dodge that won’t stack with taking cover or raising a shield.
- (GG): Lower range penalties and a special Action to take aim and double your range on the next shot make this a really strong feat for anyone that primarily uses a ranged weapon.
- (GG): An optional upgrade to Student of the Unseen, granting two Lores each day instead of one. Solid upgrade if you’re already heavily using the other feat.
Level 13
- (GG): Adding 5 to all your speeds is strong enough on its own. A 1-Action 240 foot teleport every ten minutes is incredibly strong. Remember that this will stack with Fleet, but not with the speed boost from any other ancestry feats, such as if you took the Aiuvarin versatile heritage and the Nimble Elf feat.
- (GG): Coronal Flare alone wasn’t the most impressive feat, but this upgrade giving it the 40 ft. thrown property is a little bit nutty. Flaming Space Monk? I can get behind that.
- (GG): Unfettered Movement is a great spell that will just work and even combines super well with the Surprising Escape feat from earlier. Clear Mind, however, requires a Counteract check which means that being stuck as a 4th rank spell, it has already become obsolete at level 13.
- (GG): If you already took Energy Shielding and Energy Deflection, this feat will at least give you an extra bonus when successfully using Deflection: Temporary Hit Points. And on top of that, you get another copy of Energy Shielding for a minute, to add Resistance to another energy type.
- (GG): Once per day: Create a 100 foot Line, fill it with Light, Dazzle anyone who was in the Line, teleport somewhere inside the Line, your wings treat the Line as if it were a vacuum for a minute. It’s not great to begin with and it can only be used once per day.
Level 17
- (GG): Assuming your save DC isn’t too poor, this is a decent way to pick up an incredibly wide AoE. These spells are basically identical except one does cold and void damage while the other does fire and vitality damage.
- (GG): You can’t die anymore. Instead you have a 2d6 days respawn timer. Hopefully being AFK for potentially a week and a half doesn’t have any negative consequences.
- (GG): Know every language ever. Never bad if you’re playing the Face of your party, but you can also handle this with magic.
- (GG): Three Recall Knowledge as one Action every ten minutes is pretty nice. And if you happen to make one of those rolls your daily Student of the Unseen lore, it rolls twice and takes the higher.
