Holocron

Alternate Casting

Variant Rules · optional rule

Inspired by the Dimension 20 actual play campaign A Starstruck Odyssey, where one of the main characters is using sentinel bones but with techcasting instead of forcecasting, I've created the following variant rule.

Saving Throws

For the five classes with native casting (consular, engineer, guardian, scout, sentinel) you'll want to make the following adjustments to their saving throws.

  • Consular: Replace Charisma with Intelligence.
  • Engineer: Replace Intelligence with Charisma.
  • Guardian: Replace Charisma with Intelligence.
  • Scout: No changes.
  • Sentinel: Replace Charisma with Intelligence.

Force- and Tech-casting

You'll want to replace the Forcecasting feature with Techcasting, and vice versa, as appropriate. Specifically, Force Powers Known, Force Points, and Forcecasting Ability will want to be replaced with Tech Powers Known, Tech Points, and Techcasting Ability, and vice versa, as described below:

Note that Max Power Level is not mentioned because it is not affected by these changes.

  • Consular: Replace consular Forcecasting with engineer Techcasting.
  • Engineer: Replace engineer Techcasting with consular Forcecasting.
  • Guardian: Replace guardian Forcecasting with scout Techcasting.
  • Scout: Replace scout Techcasting with guardian Forcecasting. Mechanist scout should instead replace Improved Techcasting with sentinel Forcecasting.
  • Sentinel: Replace sentinel Forcecasting with the Improved Techcasting present in the Mechanist Technique scout archetype, with the following updates: sentinels will have 5 and 6 tech powers known, and 2 and 3 tech points, at 1st and 2nd levels, respectively.
  • Splashcasters: Replace Forcecasting with Techcasting, and vice versa, of the other splashcasting archetype for that class. For instance, Shield Specialist fighter would replace its Techcasting feature with Adept Specialist fighter's forcecasting.

For the crosscaster archetypes, such as Way of Technology consular, you can simply flip the powers accordingly.

Class Features

Different classes or archetypes with casting as a core component are typically built around that casting's primary ability score. You'll want to update or replace them, as appropriate to the class or archetype, including capstones.

Short or Long Rest Recovery

You can also consider swapping the point recovery rest requirements, creating short rest force points or long rest tech points. To do so, you'll want to halve the base number of force points (not accounting for ability modifier) to account for short rest recovery, or double the base number of tech points (again not accounting for ability modifier) to account for long rest recovery. For instance, a consular with long rest forcecasting gets four tech points for each consular level (before modifier). If you wanted to do a short rest forcecasting consular instead, you'd only receive two tech points per consular level. The opposite would be true for an engineer; while they would get two tech points per engineer level as with short rest recovery techcasting, they would instead get four tech points per engineer level for long rest casting (again, ignoring additional tech points from their ability modifier).

Note that if you are only swapping the rest mechanics, this has no impact on powers known or casting ability, as discussed earlier in this variant rule.

Sundry Sidney

For those of you watching A Starstruck Odyssey, Sundry Sidney is a sentinel using techcasting instead of forcecasting. While they swapped the powers known, type of points, and casting ability, they maintained the long rest recovery of points. Consequently, she kept the three points per level a sentinel would normally receive, instead of halving the number received as with Improved Techcasting present in the Mechanist Scout archetype.