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What's in this Book?

Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 7
This book contains all the information you need to play Starfinder, whether you’re a player or a Game Master. While some people may want to dive directly into the rules and character creation beginning with Chapter 2, others may want to first learn about Starfinder’s setting by perusing Chapter 12.

For players making characters, Chapter 2 provides a stepby- step walk-through of the process that includes references to relevant chapters. Chapter 3 follows with information about the different core races from which you can choose, and Chapter 4 presents classes that determine your character’s skills and abilities. Chapters 5–7 include information for further customizing your character’s abilities and equipment, while Chapter 10 covers magic and spells for characters with a supernatural element. Feel free to peruse some or all of these sections before embarking on the character creation process. See the first step in Character Creation on page 14 for more details.

Beyond information about character creation, this book also contains the rules you’ll need to play the Starfinder RPG. Tactical combat, movement, and related rules are an important part of Starfinder, as is starship combat, and these can be found in Chapters 8 and 9. It’s a good idea for players to review these chapters when learning how to play Starfinder, and it’s key for Game Masters to understand them so that gameplay and adjudication can flow smoothly.

Game Masters should also review Chapter 11, which collects key GM rules such as Starfinder’s common environments, hazards like traps and poisons, instructions for building encounters and preparing and running games, and more. They’ll also want to be deeply familiar with the setting presented in Chapter 12, and Game Masters familiar with the Pathfinder RPG and interested in bringing elements of that game into their Starfinder adventures will want to review Chapter 13, which explains how to incorporate legacy material into Starfinder.

Besides this book, you need just a few things to play and run a Starfinder game. Most importantly, you need a prepared Game Master and players with characters they’ve created ahead of time. (Blank character sheets can be found in the back of this book and online at paizo.com.) You also need pencils and a set of polyhedral dice. Each die is referred to using a “d” followed by the number of sides it has (so a four-sided die is a d4). You need at least one d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20, as well as a set of percentile dice (“d%”) that generates a number from 1 to 100 (this can be simulated with two 10-sided dice). You also need a tactical battle map with 1-inch squares and a starship battle map with 1-inch hexagons, as well as tokens or miniatures to represent your characters and ships.

Not sure where to start? Starfinder Flip-Mat: Basic Terrain and Starfinder Flip-Mat: Basic Starfield give you the maps you need to play, and you can find miniatures and cardstock pawns like the Starfinder Core Rulebook Pawn Collection at paizo.com, along with dice sets and other gaming accessories.

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What's in this Book?