Each class operates under at least one rule that differs from the base game. These replace or extend standard behavior. Where a rule here conflicts with the rulebook, this takes precedence.
An Alchemist who spends half of any rest brewing does not sacrifice the rest for it, recovery proceeds normally.
When a creature dies within 30 feet, the Animist may draw in the departing spirit to recover one spell slot equal to that creature's level.
An Animist cannot benefit from rest until they have physically touched a spirit since their last rest. A wandering dead, a bound spirit, or the recently deceased reached before the connection fades, any of these satisfies the requirement. Without it, rest provides nothing.
Each time a Barbarian enters Rage, they gain a Rage Scar: a visible, permanent mark. A Barbarian can enter Rage a number of times equal to twice their character level before the scars take their toll. After that threshold is crossed, they permanently lose 1 point of Charisma modifier and gain 1 point of Constitution modifier, and the count resets.
This does not reverse.
Rage itself branches. Priming a stimulant before entering Rage while holding the right instinct unlocks a named Rage form, and forms unlock further forms across six tiers. See Rage and the Rage Tree.
A Bard who performs for at least 10 minutes for a crowd whose average level exceeds their own recovers their lowest missing spell slot. Performing for followers or lower-level audiences does not qualify.
A Champion's code is tracked as a ledger. While the code is kept intact, the Champion earns +1 XP per session. Each knowing violation permanently shifts the rate down by 1, the first brings it to 0, the second to −1, the third to −2, and so on without floor or recovery.
What constitutes a violation is judged against the specific tenets agreed upon at character creation. The GM decides. The ledger does not forgive.
A Cleric radiates their deity's influence in an area of 10 feet per character level. Allies of the same faith within that area gain a +1 status bonus to saving throws against the magic type their deity's tradition opposes on the wheel.
While inside a consecrated church or temple dedicated to their deity, a Cleric may cast any spell at or below their god's rank without having prepared it and without expending a slot. Outside of it, standard rules apply.
While aboard a vessel or station in open space, a Druid cannot benefit from rest. Spell slots and class features do not recover until they return to a living world.
Inside a Druid Grove: a consecrated natural space attuned to their power, a Druid may cast any spell without expending a slot.
An Exemplar counts as a valid deity for any creature that chooses to follow them. This applies to all mechanics that reference a character's god, divine spellcasting, channel energy, and anything else that requires a divine patron.
An Exemplar cannot benefit from rest unless at least one creature who holds them as their god is within 1 mile per character level. If no such worshiper is within range, all recovery is blocked until the condition is met.
Once per encounter, before rolling, a Fighter may declare a Fair Chance Strike. The attack cannot critically hit and cannot critically miss. The result falls in the ordinary range, guaranteed.
On any misfire, the Gunslinger rolls 1d20. On a 1, the weapon is destroyed.
An Inventor may draft a blueprint for any item from knowledge alone, no formula, no reference material, no prior examination required. The Crafting check DC is 15 + the item's level.
| Result | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Critical Success | Complete blueprint. Crafting time for items built from it is halved. |
| Success | Functional blueprint. Normal crafting proceeds. |
| Failure | Flawed blueprint. The first item built carries a GM-determined quirk. |
| Critical Failure | The blueprint is wrong in a way that isn't apparent until it is. The first item built misfires on completion or first use. |
An Investigator may declare a Case: a formal investigation with a stated resolution condition. They may hold a number of open Cases equal to their Intelligence modifier. Cases have no time limit.
A Case may only be declared when all of the following are trueA Kineticist requires 1 Bulk of their element per character level to benefit from rest. The attunement takes 1 hour and the material is fully consumed in the process. Without it, rest provides no recovery regardless of time passed.
When a Spellstrike hits another spellcaster, that caster loses one spell slot of their choice at the same level as the slot the Magus used. The target chooses which slot. It is gone.
A Monk's rest must be spent in uninterrupted meditation. Combat, conversation, and sustained noise break it. A broken meditation must restart from the beginning. A Monk who cannot find stillness cannot recover.
During a meditation rest, a Monk may convert Stamina into Hit Points at a 3:1 ratio. Stamina spent this way is not recovered at the end of the rest.
An Oracle begins play with a full 54-card deck: a standard deck including both jokers. This is a physical component of their casting and must be kept. Whenever the Oracle casts a spell, they may choose to draw one card. The draw is optional until declared. After that, it resolves.
A drawn card is spent. Lay it face up. It does not return to the deck until the Oracle reshuffles, which takes a long rest, or ten minutes of handling the cards with nothing else demanding attention.
This is the part worth playing carefully. The spent pile is public, so an Oracle who watches it knows what fate has left. Eleven cards down and no Ace among them means the good draws are still in there and the odds have quietly improved. It also means the jokers are closer. Reshuffling resets that danger and throws away everything you had worked out, which is the whole decision: the deck is safest exactly when you know least about it.
A numbered card replaces the spell's caster level cap with three times the card's value. The slot spent does not change, and nothing else about the caster level rule changes.
A 2 drawn on a 6th-rank slot is a catastrophe: the cap falls from 18 to 6, and an expensive spell arrives limp. An 8 drawn on a 1st-rank slot is a gift: the cap rises from 3 to 24, so the cheapest thing the Oracle owns lands at their full level. The gamble is therefore shaped by what was spent. Betting a cantrip-cheap slot costs almost nothing; betting a 6th-rank slot means putting something real in front of the deck.
| Card Drawn | Caster Level Cap Becomes |
|---|---|
| 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 9 |
| 4 | 12 |
| 5 | 15 |
| 6 | 18 |
| 7 or higher | 20 · character maximum |
An Ace removes the cap entirely. The spell uses the Oracle's full character level as its caster level, and resolves at the rank of the slot spent for every other purpose.
There are four of them, and whether they are still in the deck is the sharpest thing an Oracle can know. An Ace on a 1st-rank slot is the class at its best: nothing spent, everything delivered, and no way to plan for it.
A face card does not modify the spell, which resolves at its normal caster level cap. Instead, the Oracle is struck by a Vision: immediate, involuntary, and consequential. The suit determines the domain. The GM determines the content and may impose behavioral or perceptual effects based on what was seen.
Foresight. An Oracle who has been shown something may look at the top card of their deck at any point before their next draw. Looking does not spend it.
A Vision is never a wasted draw. It pays in information rather than power, which is the currency the class is built on: knowing the next card is worth more to a careful Oracle than three extra dice, because it turns the following gamble into a decision.
Both jokers carry permanent consequences. A joker that has been drawn is removed from the deck for good and does not come back on a reshuffle. Each fires once, and an Oracle who has survived both is done with them.
Because cards are spent rather than returned, the jokers grow more likely the longer an Oracle goes without reshuffling. That is the pressure the deck applies, and the one the Oracle chooses whether to keep feeding.
The Oracle can no longer gain levels in the Oracle class. Existing features remain. No further progression is possible.
The Oracle immediately loses half their total XP, rounded down, and loses all Oracle class features. What remains is whatever the character was before the cards chose them.
Upon entering a settlement or beginning a long rest within one, the Psychic makes a Fortitude save with DC 10 + 1 per 1,000 people in the population.
During each rest, a Ranger attunes to a specific biome, forest, desert, ship interior, open vacuum, or any other defined environment. While in their attuned biome, they gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Perception, Survival, and Stealth. Changing attunement requires a full rest in the new environment.
A Ranger also gains a pool of Resolve Points equal to their Constitution modifier, functioning as the Starfinder Resolve mechanic.
A Sorcerer cannot take more class levels in Sorcerer than twice their (Constitution modifier + (5 − blood potency)). Blood potency is determined at character creation and represents how far removed the Sorcerer is from the source of their power. Estari always have a blood potency of 0. All others have a potency between 1 and 10. If Constitution drops below the threshold needed to sustain existing levels, features from excess levels are suspended until it is restored.
Sorcerers cast from a spell point pool rather than slots. When the pool is empty, they may convert Hit Points to spell points at a 1:1 ratio. Stamina cannot be used for this. Only Hit Points.
When both the Summoner and their Eidolon are reduced to 0 HP in the same encounter, the Eidolon's spirit is destroyed. Not banished. When the bond next manifests, it draws a new spirit of similar nature with no memory of the previous one.
Panache can only be gained while at least one non-ally creature is observing. No audience, no Panache. If the Swashbuckler is knocked unconscious in front of witnesses, they cannot gain Panache for the remainder of that encounter.
Each Thaumaturge may permanently designate one item as their personal Relic. This cannot be changed or transferred. The Relic's properties and growing mechanical weight are developed with the GM over the course of play.
Each spell cast accrues 1 point of Debt to the Witch's patron. At every rest, the patron collects. The Witch must offer something: a memory, a secret, a material possession, a piece of who they are. The GM determines whether the offering is sufficient. If refused, the familiar goes dormant and spells do not recover until the debt is cleared.
At any time, the Witch may also make a separate offering in exchange for a bonus spell slot. The GM decides whether the offering qualifies and at what level the slot is granted.
Prepared spells have a shelf life of 24 hours. After that, the spell loses 1 effective level for each additional 24-hour period that passes. Resting and re-preparing resets the decay on everything prepared.
A Wizard may also spend 10 minutes of uninterrupted concentration to swap any single prepared spell for another from their spellbook, provided the slot has not yet been expended.
Before making any social skill check, an Envoy may declare they are Reading the situation. The result shifts one category upward, critical failure becomes failure, failure becomes success, success becomes critical success. The declaration must come before the dice are rolled. Once per scene.
A Mechanic may spend half of any rest continuously taking the Repair action on any technological item. The rest still counts as a full rest and recovery proceeds normally.
All sentient creatures within 30 feet of a Mystic can sense their emotional state, not their thoughts, but the presence of fear, anger, grief, or calm as something physical. The Mystic cannot suppress this.
In social situations the GM applies a modifier between −2 and +2 to relevant checks based on whether the Mystic's emotional state is aligned or opposed to the context.
An Operative maintains a number of active Contingencies equal to their Intelligence modifier. A Contingency is declared on the Operative's turn and must follow a clear cause-and-effect structure: a specific trigger and a specific response.
When the trigger occurs, on any turn, the response fires automatically, consuming the Operative's reaction but not their action. A Contingency persists until triggered or until reset on the Operative's next turn. Contingencies replace held actions.
A Soldier can go a number of consecutive days without rest equal to their Constitution modifier before suffering ill effects. After that period ends, they must complete one rest for each day skipped before recovering normally. The debt accumulates exactly.
A Solarian tracks Photon and Graviton activations across each session. At the end of any rest, if the difference between the two exceeds their character level, they take untyped damage equal to the imbalance and cannot attune on the first turn of their next combat.
When a Solarian ends an encounter in perfect equilibrium: equal Photon and Graviton activations, their next activation of either mode triggers a Nova. Before resolving, the player chooses one: maximize all dice, or double all durations. After the Nova resolves, the Solarian resets to 0 in both modes.
Each time a Witchwarper uses an ability that alters reality, the local area accumulates Fray. The Witchwarper cannot control or predict it.
Colors shift at the edges. Echoes arrive before the sounds that caused them. The air feels slightly wrong.
Objects briefly duplicate or vanish. Distances become unreliable. Shadows don't always match what casts them.
Creatures from adjacent realities may briefly manifest. The GM determines what arrives and for how long. It is not always hostile.