Centaur PCs for Starfinder First Edition (Patreon)

CENTAURS IN STARFINDERI have always loved the idea of centaur player characters. I suspect my love started with “Bridge of Sorrows” by Denis Beauvais, which was the cover of Dragon Magazine #92 (TSR, December 1984). Or maybe to goes back a tad earlier, to the Xanth novel Centaur Aisle, which I read in 1982, the same year I first encountered D&D, and RPGs in general.

I definitely wanted centaur PCs for my Really Wild West setting hack, which means I needed rules for playing them as PCs in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game.

Links to my Starfinder player species can be found, along with links to many other Starfinder entries, at the Paying-Patreon Exclusive Starfinder First Edition Index.

Ability AdjustmentsCentaurs are powerfully built and in tune with their surroundings, but their hybrid form does come with drawbacks. Some centaurs are slightly awkward, having the brain of a biped, but the body of a quadruped. Others are delicate, their thin ankles and strange doubled internal organs leaving them prone to injury and ailments. A few are impatient and have little taste for complex calculations, preferring direct action and simple solutions whenever possible.A centaur has +2 Strength and +2 Wisdom. A centraur also has a -2 to one of the following ability scores: Dexterity, Constitution, or Intelligence.

Size and TypeCentaurs are monstrous humanoids that vary in size from halfling-scale torsos on pony equine bodies, to mighty human or even ogrelike torsos on mighty warhorse equine bodies. At character creation, a centaur PC decides if they are Medium or Large. They use held equipment as Medium characters in either case, but any armor is calculated using their total size.

Hit Points6

DarkvisionCentaurs have darkvision with a range of 60 feet.

HumanoidlikeCentaurs are close enough to nonmonstrous humanoids that they can be affected by spells and abilities that affect humanoids, but do not normally affect monstrous humanoids. Centaurs gain a +4 racial bonus to saving throws (if any) against such effects.

GallopCentaurs have a land speed of 40 feet, but treat it as a speed of 20 feet when determining their movement using Athletics to climb or swim. A centaur gains a +2 bonus to AC when charging (which normally just offsets the -2 penalty to AC for charging). When a centaur succeeds at a bull rush combat maneuver, they can move their target 5 feet farther than normal.

Natural WeaponsCentaurs are always considered armed. They can deal 1d3 lethal damage with unarmed strikes and the attack doesn’t count as archaic. Centaurs gain a unique weapon specialization with their natural weapons at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1–1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level, as usual).

QuadrupedCentaurs are quadrupeds, which gives them some advantages and a few drawbacks. They take -2 penalties to Acrobatics checks to tumble and Athletics checks to climb. When determining their bulk limits, centaurs add half their Constitution score to their Strength score for that calculation. Centaurs gain a +2 racial bonus to their KAC against bull rush and reposition combat maneuvers. A centaur can carry one creature of its own size, or two of at least one size smaller, without counting them against the centaur’s bulk limit.

(Starfinder First Edition Centaur, art by Tritons)