CLASSES

There are four possible classes you can choose for
your hero: Adventurer, Expert, Psychic, and Warrior.
Experts are PCs that rely on non-combat skills such as
stealth, persuasion, technical expertise, piloting skills,
vast learning, or personal connections. Psychics are
those rare men and women affected by Metadimensional
Extroversion Syndrome, ones capable of channeling
these metadimensional energies to perform
feats of telekinesis, precognition, telepathy, and other
psionic disciplines. Warriors are hardened combatants,
skilled in the arts of war and violent conflict, and Adventurers
include those with a mix of talents and abilities,
ones who don’t fit well into one of the other classes.
Choose a class that best fits your character’s concept.
If Expert, Psychic, or Warrior don’t fit your image
of your hero, or if you want to customize their abilities,
you can choose the Adventurer class.

 

Expert

Your hero is exceptionally good at a useful skill. Doctors,
cat burglars, starship pilots, grifters, technicians,
or any other concept that focuses on expertise in a
non-combat skill should pick the Expert class. Experts
are the best at such skills and gain more of them than
other classes do.

Just as a Warrior can be relied upon to make a
shot when the chips are down, an Expert has a knack
for succeeding at the moments of greatest importance.
Once per scene, an Expert can reroll a failed skill check,
taking the new result if it’s better. This benefit can be
applied to any skill check, even those that the Expert
isn’t specially focused in. Their natural talent bleeds
over into everything they do.

In their chosen field, however, the Expert is exceptionally
gifted. Aside from the free focus level that all
PCs get at the start of the game, an Expert can choose
an additional level in a non-combat focus related to
their background. They can spend both of these levels
on the same focus if they wish, thus starting the game
with level 2 in that particular knack.

Class Abilities

Every Expert PC has certain special abilities.

• You gain a free level in a non-combat focus related

to your background. Most concepts will take
Specialist in their main skill, though Diplomat, Starfarer,
Healer, or some other focus might suit better.
You may not take a combat-oriented focus with
this perk. In case of uncertainty, the GM decides
whether or not a focus is permitted.

• Once per scene, you can reroll a failed skill check,

taking the new roll if it’s better.

• When you advance an experience level, you

gain a bonus skill point that can be spent on any
non-combat, non-psychic skill. You can save this
point to spend later if you wish.

Psychic

Your hero has received training in controlling their natural
Metadimensional Extroversion Syndrome, and can
wield the psychic powers that come from that strange
affliction. Controlling and developing psychic abilities
is an extremely demanding process but allows for feats
wholly impossible to ordinary men and women.

Psychics are extremely rare in the general population.
Averages vary with worlds, but most range from
one in ten thousand to one in a hundred thousand who
have the MES condition that make them amenable to
psychic training. Some of these go their entire lives
without realizing their capabilities. Others end up exploiting
their native abilities without training, almost
inevitably ending up seriously brain-damaged or crazed
by the effects of unmediated metadimensional energy.

Your hero has been fortunate enough to find a psychic
academy or other training institution capable of
molding and directing these abilities. They may have
come to this later in life, or been recruited young by a
society that carefully watches for MES symptoms.
Some societies deal with their psychics more generously
than others. On some worlds, psychic powers
are accepted and their possessors can look forward to
lucrative and respected employment. On others, fear of
these uncanny powers and memories of the horrors of
the Scream lead to less welcoming treatment.

Class Abilities

Every Psychic PC has certain special abilities.

• Unlike Warriors or Experts, you are capable of

learning psychic disciplines and their associated
techniques, as described starting on page 28.

• When you pick this class, choose any two psychic

skills as bonus skills. You can pick the same one
twice to obtain level-1 proficiency in it and a free
level-1 technique from that discipline.

• You have an Effort score, which can be used to

fuel psychic abilities. Your maximum Effort is
equal to 1 plus your highest psychic skill plus the
better of your Wisdom or Constitution modifiers.
Even with a penalty, your maximum Effort
cannot be lower than 1.

Warrior

Whether a hiveworld thug, barbarian lostworlder,
gengineered combat hominid, or a natural-born killer
wasting their potential in a desk job, your hero has
a real talent for inflicting mayhem. Combat in Stars
Without Number is extremely dangerous, but your hero
has the talents to survive situations that would kill a
less martial adventurer.

As a gifted purveyor of violence, you get to pick
an extra combat-related focus associated with your
special brand of havoc. While a character of any class
can take these special combat talents, you get this additional pick and a better natural hit bonus than heroes
of other classes.

Most importantly, however, Warriors have an uncanny
gift for making a shot when a hit is desperately
needed, or dodging a bullet when their life is on the
line. Once per scene, a Warrior can either automatically
negate a successful combat hit they just received,
taking no damage from it, or else they can turn one
of their own missed attack rolls into an automatic hit.
This versatility makes Warriors exceptionally dangerous
enemies in a one-on-one fight, and significantly
more likely to survive the gory chaos of a general melee.

Class Abilities

Every Warrior PC has certain special abilities.

• You gain a free level in a combat-related focus 

associated with your background. The GM decides
if a focus qualifies if it’s an ambiguous case.

• Warriors are lucky in combat. Once per scene, as

an Instant ability, you can either choose to negate
a successful attack roll against you or turn a
missed attack roll you made into a successful hit.
You can use this ability after the dice are rolled,
but it cannot be used against environmental damage,
effects without an attack roll, or hits on a
vehicle you’re occupying.

• You gain two extra maximum hit points at each

character level.
 

Adventurer

The Adventurer class is the catch-all for heroes who
don’t fit so neatly into the other three categories. Perhaps
your mercenary spent her girlhood at a psychic
academy, or maybe your combat medic knows more
about using a laser rifle than most physicians do. You
can use the Adventurer class to customize your hero’s
abilities, trading focus for wider versatility.

Adventurers split their focus between different
spheres, gaining weaker versions of each class’ benefits.
For example, an Adventurer who is a psionic
warrior-adept might have considerable powers of
telekinetic force and a brutal expertise at bare-handed
combat, but they won’t have access to the wider psionic
potential of an unrestricted Psychic or the death-defying
combat luck of a hardened Warrior.

Partial Expert

You gain a free level in a non-combat focus related to
your background. Most concepts will take Specialist,
though Diplomat, Starfarer, Healer, or some other focus
might suit better. Gain an extra skill point every time
you gain a character level which can be spent on any
non-psychic, non-combat skill.

Partial Psychic

You are a restricted psychic. Pick one psychic discipline
as a bonus skill at level-0. You can improve this skill
with foci or skill points gained from advancing a level,
but you cannot learn or improve any other psychic skill.
Your maximum Effort equals 1 plus this psychic skill’s
level plus the best of your Wisdom or Constitution
modifiers, down to a minimum of 1.

Partial Warrior

You gain a free level in a combat focus related to your
background. Gain +1 to your attack bonus at first and
fifth levels. Gain 2 extra maximum hit points each level.
Thus, at first level, you’d roll 1d6+2 for your maximum
hit points. At second, you’d roll 2d6+4, and so forth.