Building Creatures

To begin, come up with the creature's concept. You likely already have the basic idea. As you add details to the general idea, taking notes can help keep your creature on track. Consider the parts of your creature you find most compelling and want to emphasize when the creature hits the table. For example, in Alien Core, typodaemons thrive on the subtle destruction wrought by their mischief and become sickened if you point out their intentional errors. Tax collector robots relentlessly pursue their targets but can be placated by paying a fine, as represented by their centerpiece ability, tax collector. Note your creature's core aspects, and if you feel uncertain later, you can look back and ask yourself, “Does this emphasize a core aspect or not?”

Next, look at the creature's role in your game. Is it meant to be a combatant? A social creature? A trusted ally? Figuring this out will help you determine whether to give it strong combat abilities or to focus on skills, spells, and special abilities. Think about how the creature might behave if it's in a fight, if someone tries to talk to it, or if it's in a social situation. Does it work better alone or with allies? What sort of character should be best at facing it or be particularly weak against it?

Also consider the complexity of the creature. This matters most when you plan to use a large number of creatures of that type. If you'll use five at the same time, you'll want their turns to move swiftly and avoid complex special actions. A creature that's likely to face a group of PCs alone can have more abilities, and it might need a more versatile set of defenses against PC tactics. Cut complexity as much as you can while retaining your desired theme.

Now, how do you want an encounter with this creature to feel? Should it be scary? Mobile? Confusing? A mystical duel or a knockdown, drag-out fight? What can you give your creature to convey those characteristics? Much of this feel will come from your choice of the creature's special abilities or spells, rather than its raw numbers.

With all this in mind, think about what specific abilities your creature should have. Take a few notes now, and get to the details later. You can use abilities from Alien Core or feats in Player Core, adjusting as needed, to save yourself time. It helps to think of a creature that's similar to yours and see what makes it tick—and what you can steal from it. Maybe you can just reskin that creature (sidebar Reskinning a Creature), instead of making a new one from scratch.

Now that you understand your creature's concept, it's time to get to the statistics. Remember that you can always change your concept later on. Your creation might evolve and transform as you go, so be open to change.

Most of the statistics in this section use a scale of extreme, high, moderate, and low—some use terrible values as well.

Extreme: The creature is world-class in this statistic and can challenge almost any character. Most creatures have no extreme statistics or only one extreme statistic, although some creatures might have additional extreme statistics and weaker related statistics elsewhere (a common example being a creature trading accuracy for extreme damage). Examples from Alien Core include the zitteroc's Athletics modifier and the necrovite's spell DC.

High: Extremely capable but not world-class, the creature presents a challenge for most characters. Just about all creatures have at least one high value. Most combat-focused creatures have high AC and either a high attack bonus and high damage, or a merely moderate attack bonus but extreme damage. A cerebinite's attack bonus and a heliad nymph's Diplomacy modifier are high values.

Moderate: A middle-of-the road statistic covers anything unremarkable about the creature. Use this one often.

Low: The creature is actively bad at this. Choose these intentionally to represent the creature's weak points. Most creatures should have at least one low statistic; an example is the warp troll's Will save.

Terrible: Some statistics can dip even lower than low, to terrible. This indicates a truly awful statistic that still isn't game-breakingly bad. A tech zombie's Intelligence is terrible, as is a void ooze's Reflex save.

For most creatures you build, their level depends on the level of the party that will encounter it. Look at other creatures you think are similar in power to yours to determine its level. Note that level represents a creature's combat ability, so a creature that's more social might have 3rd-level combat statistics and 6th-level skills, but it would remain a 3rd-level creature. Most such creatures are NPCs; for more information on this distinction and how to use it, see Non-Combat Level.

Some abilities are hard for PCs to deal with at low levels. For instance, creatures with an extreme AC at lower levels can make for frustrating foes that require exceptionally high rolls to hit. Natural invisibility or at-will invisibility as an innate spell should come at around 6th level, when PCs are more likely to prepare see the unseen in lower-rank spell slots, or 8th level, when some PCs get access to the truesight sight.

The tables in this chapter go up to 24th level, the highest-level extreme encounter a party might face.

Fill out the trait line of your creature's stat block. Creatures can be whatever size you need them to be, though you seldom find Large creatures below 1st level, Huge creatures below 5th level, or Gargantuan creatures below 10th level. Generally, you don't automatically adjust statistics for size, except to Strength modifiers for Large and bigger creatures, which you'll find in the following Attribute Modifiers section.

Your creature will almost certainly have one of the following traits to define its type: aberration, animal, astral, beast, celestial, construct, dragon, elemental, ethereal, fey, fiend, fungus, giant, humanoid, monitor, ooze, plant, robot, or undead. If you're making a creature from an existing category of a type, such as demon, it also has that category as a trait. Creatures with a close affinity to elements—air, earth, fire, metal, water and wood—or types of energy—like acid, cold, and electricity—have those traits.

Some abilities that are typical of creatures with the traits listed here can be found in Trait Abilities. As with the other steps, looking at similar creatures will give you an idea of what traits to use.

Add any traits that have detailed rules attached to them, like amphibious, aquatic, cosmic, incorporeal, mindless, and swarm. You can add traits related to the creature category, such as kucharn or midwife, but most of these traits are pretty self-evident in play. If at any point you realize during play that you didn't add a trait the creature really should have, you can usually apply it retroactively.

Next, figure out your creature's attribute modifiers since these will suggest what their other statistics should be. You don't have to determine the exact numbers, but it's good to avoid creating creatures whose attribute modifiers are at odds with their abilities, like creatures with a terrible Wisdom modifier and a very high Perception. Most of the time, you'll just be using attribute modifiers for untrained skills, so they're useful as a guide but not crucial.

The Attribute Modifier Scales table shows some benchmarks for your creatures. Use high for the creature's best attribute modifiers, moderate for ones they're okay at, and low for the rest. If a creature has a truly bad ability, you can go as low as –5. That's the terrible range for attribute modifiers, and doesn't really change by level. This is most common with animals, which have an Intelligence modifier of –4 (for khefaks, laser wolves, rats, and such) or –5 (for more instinctual animals like insects), and for mindless creatures, which have a –5 Intelligence modifier.

Few creatures use the extreme column. A powerful, dedicated spellcaster might use an extreme spellcasting statistic, or a preternaturally charming creature like a nymph might have an extreme Charisma modifier. However, the most common way extreme numbers are used is for really big, really strong creatures. This happens with only Large or bigger creatures from 1st to 5th level, Huge or larger creatures from 6th to 9th level, and Gargantuan creatures from 10th to 15th level. Beyond that level, a creature doesn't gain an extreme Strength modifier from size alone.

Perception is a fairly straightforward statistic. Use Wisdom as a guide for setting it, and adjust to the high side if your creature has acute senses or extra training. If your creature has low Wisdom, for example, it would probably have a low Perception modifier, or moderate if it's supposed to be a great hunter. Don't make your creature's Perception higher just because it's often used for initiative; creatures with poor Perception could use a skill check for initiative instead, such as Stealth.

Think about what languages the creature would need to communicate with other creatures in its home. For instance, many intelligent undead speak Necril, and many creatures from the Azlanti Star Empire speak Azlanti. If you want your creature to be able to speak to the PCs, be sure it has Common; for a creature with no reason to speak the common tongue of your setting (such as most extraplanar creatures in a typical campaign, or creatures from the Vast), be sure it doesn't. Some creatures can understand language but can't vocalize; in this case, you can state that they can't speak any language. For creatures that need to be able to infiltrate and communicate wherever they go, you might give them a digital translator, truespeech, the ability to communicate telepathically, or a similar ability as a constant innate spell.

You have lots of flexibility in setting your creature's skills. Pick some skills you think are appropriate, and consider how good the creature is at them. High skills are roughly on par with a specialized PC of the creature's level, though they could be a little lower or higher. Most creatures have at least one high skill, but no more than three. The best skills should go with the best attribute modifiers, and you might even want to estimate the creature's proficiency rank for these skills. Some skills can get a high bonus for free to fit the creature's theme, particularly Lore skills.

Most creatures don't have an extreme skill unless they're world-class for their level, like a necrovite's Arcana. Having an extreme skill is less impactful than having an extreme AC or attack bonus, but it still might warrant a sacrifice elsewhere, especially if the creature also has more high skills than usual. There's no need for terrible skill modifiers since an untrained skill usually represents that.

If you gave a creature gear equivalent to a PC, your PCs would gain a huge amount of treasure by defeating a large group of them. Using the Safe Items table can help you avoid that. A creature can have a single permanent item of the listed level without issue. For example, if a 6th-level creature has a tactical doshko, that item isn't worth enough that the PCs would be massively rich if they encountered many creatures of that type and sold everything they found. You can give a creature several lower-level items too. Just pay attention to your overall treasure as measured against the Safe Item table on page 121. At the lowest levels, a creature can certainly have multiple level 0 items, even though normally a creature should have only one item of the level listed in the Safe Item Level column. You can also give a creature's item the implanted trait if it's attached to its body, making it so the item can't be looted.

Specific creatures or NPCs have more leeway to break these guidelines because you can plan the rest of your adventure's loot around them. Also, giving a boss a powerful magic item makes the fight and its aftermath more interesting.

Consider adjusting your creature's HP, AC, and saves in tandem based on its theme. Almost no creature has great defenses in all areas, and such creatures often result in frustrating fights. A creature with extreme AC might mean reducing its HP to the next lowest category, or reducing its HP by a smaller amount and making another reduction elsewhere. On the other hand, a creature that's easy to hit could have more HP and a strong Fortitude save to compensate.

Give a creature HP in the moderate range unless its theme strongly suggests it should use another range. Spellcasters, for example, often have low HP. Brutish creatures usually have high HP, compensating with lower AC, weaker saves, fewer tactical options, or other limitations. As mentioned in the Defenses section above, you don't want a creature with extreme AC to have high HP too.

Hit Points are closely tied in with immunities, weaknesses, and resistances, so if your creature has any of those, look at that section before finalizing HP.

If it's highly thematic for a creature to have an immunity, weakness, or resistance, consider adding it. The Resistances and Weaknesses table lists the ranges for weaknesses and resistances by level.

Immunities are generally reserved for creatures made of an unusual substance (like a fire elemental being immune to fire). You can also give an immunity if a creature's biology or construction would logically cause it to be unaffected (like a mindless creature's immunity to mental effects). If the creature should be hard to affect with something but the conditions above aren't true, give it a resistance instead. For instance, most cosmic creatures aren't actually made of ice, so it wouldn't be immune to cold, but its life in space makes it resistant to cold. You'll typically use the lower end of the value on the Resistances and Weaknesses table for a broad resistance that applies to a wide range of effects, like "physical 5 (except silver)" and the higher end for something narrower, like a single damage type. A creature with a resistance, especially a broad resistance or a physical resistance, usually has fewer HP.

Giving your creature a weakness adds flavor to it and greatly rewards effective player tactics once your players identify the weakness. The weakness should apply to one damage type or phenomenon and use the high end of the scale. Creatures typically have at most one weakness. If a creature has a weakness, especially to something common, give it additional HP. The amount of additional HP might depend on how tough the creature should feel if the PCs don't exploit its weakness; a tough creature might have additional HP equal to quadruple the weakness value. A creature with a hard-to-exploit weakness might have additional HP equal to the weakness value or less.

In Starfinder, PCs have access to a wide variety of damage types. A 1st-level character can pack a laser pistol (fire damage), a sonic rifle (sonic damage), or even a neural lash (mental damage). Because of this prevalence of damage type accessibility, resistances and weaknesses can often turn the tide of a battle. Some damage types, like fire or cold, often appear as obvious use cases for resistances and weaknesses. Be sure to vary your creature design to include some that might have mental or sonic resistance as a means of encouraging weapon diversity.

The combination of more HP and a weakness has a different feel from standard HP with resistances. If the creature being an impervious tank really fits its theme, use a resistance with an exception, such as "physical 5 (except silver)." If, however, it makes more sense for normal hits to get through and the creature to simply have great staying power, use more HP and a weakness. Living hardlight and tech zombies are a good example of the difference between these styles. Living hardlight has resistances because they're holograms and hard to hurt. Tech zombies, on the other hand, have more HP and a weakness to slashing damage-they're tougher, but their bodies aren't built to deflect weapon attacks, and slashing attacks can rip them up quickly.

Your creature's Speed should be 25 feet if it moves like a human. Beyond that, you can set the Speed to whatever makes sense. Remember that the creature can move up to triple this number if it spends its whole turn moving, so if you want the PCs to be able to chase the creature, its Speed can be only so high. Most creatures should have a ranged attack, fly Speed, or other way to deal with flying PCs, speedy PCs, and PCs with more efficient actions that let them engage and retreat more easily. This includes creatures converted from Pathfinder, where PCs can only fly at higher levels (see Anachronistic Creatures for more information.)

Creatures can have climb and swim Speeds at any level. While you can give your creature a fly Speed at 1st-level, as most PCs should have ranged options available to them, it's better to wait until around 3rd level (when PCs have enough feats to support those ranged attacks and access to items like jump jets and jet packs) to give your creature a fly Speed if it also has ranged attacks or another way to harry the PCs from a distance indefinitely.

When building your creature's selection of Strikes, use the following sections to set the Strike's attack bonus and damage. Give the attack all the normal traits if it's a weapon; for unarmed attacks or weapons you invent, give whatever traits you feel are appropriate. Note that these traits might influence the damage you give the Strike.

You might want to make sure a creature has an unarmed attack if you think it's likely to get disarmed. Creatures should always have access to a ranged strike; even if most PCs can't fly until they get access to jet packs at 5th level, lower-level PCs might still have access to climb Speeds and limited flight options like jump jets much sooner. Some ancestries give innate flight speed too, so it's possible to have a 1st-level PC flying around the battlefield, which means most creatures do need a ranged option or be in an area where flight mobility is limited. Many parties can also pin down melee-only enemies in a way that makes an encounter trivial if the enemies don't have ranged strikes.

Your creature might have magical abilities that are best represented by spells. If you're making a highly spellcastingthemed creature, give it prepared or spontaneous spells. For a creature that has spells due to its magical nature, especially if that magic isn't its core focus, consider giving it some innate spells instead. How many spells you should give a creature depends on how you expect it to spend its actions in combat. If it's primarily going to be making Strikes, it might not have any spells, or it might just have a few to help it move around better or protect against certain types of magic.

When choosing spells, lean hard into the creature's theme. While many PCs choose spells to cover a wide variety of situations, creatures are more evocative the more focused they are. Consider selecting about three-quarters of the spells based on relevance to the theme and the remainder for other things. However, make sure the spells aren't all the same—selecting instant virus for most of a creature's spell slots doesn't make for a compelling disease-themed creature in the way a diverse selection of disease spells would.

When choosing spells, some won't be very useful if cast at an extremely low rank compared to the creature's level. Most notably, damaging spells drop off in usefulness for a creature that's expected to last only a single fight. A damaging spell 2 ranks below the highest rank a creature of that level can cast is still potentially useful, but beyond that, don't bother. Spells that have the incapacitation trait should be in the highest spell slot if you want the creature to potentially get their full effect against PCs.

In this step, you'll take the ideas for abilities you noted when you developed your concept and design these abilities for your creature. You can look at existing creature abilities from Alien Core and feats from Player Core and use them as is or modify them to fit your needs.

When choosing abilities, think about both the number of abilities and the diversity of abilities. Having a large number of similar abilities can make the creature tougher to run, and it probably can't use them all anyway. A diversity of abilities gives the creature different ways to act in different situations and helps guide you as the GM. For instance, a combat creature might have one ability it uses to get into position, another to use when it wants to focus damage on a single enemy, and a third that's more defensive.

Now it's time to look over your completed creature as a whole and make sure it's living up to your concept. Can it do everything you wanted? Does it fit its intended role? Is there anything you could add or anything superfluous you could cut to get the creature where it needs to be?

If this creature is built for combat, run through a few turns in your head. Does it still work decently if it gets slowed? Can it move into combat against the PCs effectively considering their mobility options compared to its own? Does it have any abilities it'll never use because of its other actions?

When you're satisfied with your creation, it's ready to hit the table. But that's not necessarily the end! If you notice issues during the game, you can fix them on the spot. It's your game, and you can freely change what you wrote if you think differently later on.

Creatures with certain traits tend to have similar abilities to one another. Many of these abilities are listed below to help you match the theme of the trait when you build your own creatures. Look at existing creatures with the trait to see these in practice.

Aberration

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Senses usually darkvision
Languages usually Aklo

Aeon

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Traits monitor
Languages Utopian and other planar languages; envisioning for true aeons (Alien Core)

Air

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Languages usually Sussuran Speed usually has a fly Speed

Angel

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Traits celestial, holy
Aura Angels each have a unique aura based on how they serve as messengers and how they deliver those message.
Speed usually has a fly Speed
Rituals usually angelic messenger (Alien Core)

Animal

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Languages none
Int –4 or –5

Archon

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Traits celestial, holy
Immunities fear
Virtue Ability Archons each represent a specific virtue, like courage or hope, and have a special ability based on the virtue they represent.

Astral

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Senses darkvision

Azata

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Traits celestial, holy
Weaknesses cold iron
Freedom Ability Azatas each represent a specific freedom, like free expression or free love, and have a special ability based on the freedom they represent.

Beast

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Int –3 or higher

Celestial

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Traits holy
Senses darkvision
Languages Empyrean
Saves often a +1 status bonus to all saves vs. magic
Weaknesses unholy
Strikes typically have the holy trait

Cold

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Immunities or Resistances cold

Construct

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Traits Many constructs lack minds and have the mindless trait.
Immunities bleed, death effects, diseased, doomed, drained, fatigued, healing, nonlethal attacks, paralyzed, poison, sickened, spirit, unconscious, vitality, void; if mindless, add mental

Cosmic

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Senses usually darkvision
Speed cosmic creatures with fly Speeds can fly through space and other zero-gravity environments
Immunities usually cold; Resistances cold or void

Daemon

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Traits fiend, unholy
Languages Daemonic, telepathy 100 feet
Immunities death effects
Death Ability Daemons each represent a specific kind of death, like death by disease or starvation, and have a special ability based on the method of death they represent.

Demon

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Traits fiend, unholy
Languages Chthonian, telepathy (usually 100 feet)
HP typically high to account for their multiple weaknesses
Weaknesses cold iron
Sin Vulnerability Demons each represent a specific sin, like envy or wrath, and have a special vulnerability based on the sin they represent. This should be something the PCs can exploit through their actions, which should then deal mental damage to the demon. The amount of damage should be based on how easy the vulnerability is to exploit.
Divine Innate Spells usually 5th-rank translocate and at-will 4th-rank translocate
Rituals usually demonic pact (Alien Core)
Sin Ability Demons also have a special ability based on the sin they represent, which either makes them better embody the sin or instills that sin in others.

Devil

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Traits fiend, unholy
Languages Diabolic, telepathy (usually 100 feet)
Immunities fire; Weaknesses holy; Resistances physical (except silver), poison Divine Innate Spells usually one 5th-rank translocate and at-will 4th-rank translocate
Rituals usually diabolic pact (Alien Core)
Infernal Hierarchy Ability Devils each have an ability corresponding to the role they play in the infernal hierarchy, typically focused around control or being controlled.

Dragon

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Senses darkvision
Languages usually Draconic and Triaxian
Speed usually has a fly Speed
Dragon Breath Many dragons have an activity to exhale magical, damaging energy, with specifics determined by their theme.

Drift

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Traits cosmic

Earth

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Perception often tremorsense
Languages usually Petran
Speed usually a burrow Speed

Elemental

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Senses darkvision
Immunities bleed, paralyzed, poison, sleep

Elindrian

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Senses scent
Languages Elindrian, Formian, telepathy
Husk Mind Elindrians share a telepathic bond that allows them to communicate nearly instantaneously and grants them a primal connection to a massive radioactive ooze known as the Terror of Ukulam.

Ethereal

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Senses darkvision

Fey

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Senses low-light vision
Languages usually Aklo, Fey, or both
Weaknesses cold iron

Fiend

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Traits unholy
Senses darkvision
Saves often a +1 status bonus to all saves vs. magic
Weaknesses holy
Strikes typically have the unholy trait

Fire

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Languages usually Pyric
Immunities fire; Weaknesses typically cold and water
Strikes typically deal fire damage

Fungus

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Traits fungi without minds have the mindless trait
Immunities if mindless, mental; Weaknesses sometimes slashing or fire

Giant

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Traits Large or bigger, humanoid
Senses low-light vision
Languages usually Jotun

Humanoid

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Int –3 or higher

Incorporeal

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Str –5
HP terrible at lower levels, then low at higher levels
AC typically low or moderate
Immunities bleed, disease, paralyzed, poison, precision; Resistances all damage (except force, ghost killer, or spirit; double resistance vs. non-magical) Strikes magical trait, typically low or moderate damage

Jinsul

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Senses all-around vision, darkvision
Languages Jinsul
Strikes leg blades

Kucharn

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Traits Kucharn are colony components, meaning they're in constant telepathic communication with one another because of their hive mind, and each have a specialized function within the Swarm.
Senses darkvision, usually emotionsense

Metal

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Languages usually Talican

Midwife

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Traits aberration, cosmic, midwife, holy or unholy
Languages telepathy (100 feet)
Divine Innate Spellscall cosmos, eldritch lance, eldritch wrath, massacre, revival, slice reality, void vessel; constant detect thoughts

Monitor

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Senses darkvision

Ooze

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Traits Almost all oozes lack minds and have the mindless trait.
Senses typically motion sense and no vision
AC usually terrible
HP usually around double
Immunities bleed, critical hits, precision, unconscious, often acid; if it has no vision, add visual effects; if mindless, add mental

Plant

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Traits plants without minds have the mindless trait
Senses usually low-light vision
Immunities if mindless, mental; Weaknesses sometimes fire

Protean

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Traits monitor
Languages Protean
Resistances precision, protean anatomy (Alien Core)
Divine Innate Spells constant unfettered movement
Change Shape (Alien Core)

Psychopomp

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Traits monitor
Senses lifesense (typically 60 feet)
Languages Requian
Immunities death effects, disease
Resistances poison, void
Damage shepherd's touch (Alien Core)

Spectra

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Traits cosmic, spectra
Languages Trinary, digital telepathy (typically 100 feet), truespeech
Senses darkvision, techsense

Spirit

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Traits often incorporeal, often undead

Swarm

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Traits size based on the entire mass, usually Large or bigger
HP typically low
Immunities grabbed, precision, prone, restrained, swarm mind (Alien Core); Weaknesses area damage, splash damage; Resistances physical, usually with one physical type having lower or no resistance

Undead

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Traits Almost all undead are unholy. Ghostly undead have the incorporeal trait. Undead without minds, such as most zombies, have the mindless trait.
Senses darkvision
HP void healing (Alien Core)
Immunities death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, sleep (or unconscious if it never rests at all); if mindless, add mental

Water

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Languages usually Thalassic
Speed usually has a swim Speed

Wood

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Languages usually Muan
Weaknesses fire and axes or slashing

Creatures that are meant to cleave closely to character classes or intended to represent people rather than monsters are NPCs. They might face more scrutiny around their mechanics than creatures because a player can more directly compare their operative to an NPC who acts like an operative. That doesn't mean you have to build an NPC exactly like a PC, though.

You can build NPCs just like you would any other creature. If an NPC should work like they have a class, use the class features and feats of a suitable class to pick abilities, and look at both the class's proficiencies and attribute modifiers to determine how strong the NPC's statistics should be. Class Road Maps under PC-Style Build has pre-built road maps for Player Core classes to get you started.

If the NPC isn't meant to work like they have a class (a vidgamer, for example), instead build the character separately. You can create new abilities as needed to get the NPC's interactions with the PCs to express their theme and role in the story. These NPCs can be level –1 or level 0. Their capabilities are below those of PCs, and they should typically not use any class features or feats from PC classes. Creatures of these levels tend to be extremely simple.

It's highly recommended that you select NPC skills using proficiency ranks as you would a PC, though you don't need to be precise about the number of skill increases you give the NPC. You can give them earlier access to expert, master, or legendary proficiency if they're a skill-based NPC and better proficiency in narrow areas of expertise, like Sports Lore for a brutaris player NPC.