Primary Fighting Style

Level1

The ambusher fighting style focuses on stealth, tactical positioning, and superior reflexes to gain an edge. You must have Stealth as a class skill to select this fighting style.

The arcane assailant fighting style supplements its combat effectiveness with magic powers, drawing on traditions of warrior-wizards dating back to well before the Gap. This allows you to use magic runes to augment your weapons and call on legendary powers, giving you access to arcane options even when you don’t have a magic weapon in your possession.

Choosing a bow over a laser rifle is often an defiant act performed to prove that obstacles can be overcome with the ancient weapon.

The armor storm fighting style focuses on using armor as a weapon by maximizing the damage of armor-based weapons while withstanding enemy fire. You learn to increase the effectiveness of attacks made with your armor and to add equipment normally beyond your armor’s capacity.

The battlemaster fighting style focuses on adapting your natural advantages to new dangers and situations as they arise. By anticipating particular threats or adjusting mid-combat to deal with specific foes, you can assure your survival and gain the advantage. The following soldier fighting style is an adaptation of this technique that has made its way to the Pact Worlds. You must have the armor savant and natural weapons racial traits to take this fighting style.

The blitz fighting style is all about using speed and aggression to get into the thick of melee. You increase your speed and responsiveness, gain abilities that make you better at melee combat than your enemies, and keep on fighting even when surrounded by foes.

The bombard fighting style emphasizes attacking multiple targets, often using grenades, and leverages substantial physical strength to control large weapons with significant recoil. At higher levels, you can use launchers, missiles, and other heavy weapons.

Whether the roar of flamethrowers heralds your entrance or the staccato beat of bullets punctuates your battle cries, you’re a master at using heavy weapons.

The deity Chaldira (Galactic Magic page 124) champions the righteous underdog, and her followers have immortalized her tenets in a unique fighting style. Through psychological conditioning and honed reflexes, a Chaldirilist trains to laugh off obstacles, engage the toughest foes, avenge anyone who would hurt an ally, and have fun. Though developed by halflings, variants of this style have spread elsewhere in the galaxy.

You’re a symbol of salvation for those in your squad, a peerless tactician whose battlefield acumen is matched only by your skill at arms.

You thrive not when wearing armor, but when piloting it. For you, a mech is like a second skin, and you’re able to push your favorite mech to its limits.

Mechs do not feature in every Starfinder campaign, so it’s important to check with your GM before selecting this fighting style to understand how regularly you might apply its benefits.

For some, the best combat strategies eliminate the opposition before they’re even halfway close enough to pose a credible threat. You’re adept at keeping a low profile while launching consistent, patient, and deadly attacks from afar. This style is especially well suited to sniper weapons; activating a weapon’s sniper special property to increase a weapon’s range (typically as a move action) is referred to below as “aiming a sniper weapon,” and attacks made with that increased range are referred to as “aimed shots.”

A fourfold tactician is a master of making use of multiple weapons and still having a spare hand. You must have four or more arms to select or use this fighting style.

A gloom gunner has an eldritch connection to the Shadow Plane. By choosing this style, you create this link and use it to infuse your weapon attacks with the dark dimension’s uncanny magic. As your martial skill increases, so does your bond to the Shadow Plane. This stronger union with shadow allows you to become a frightening combatant with any armaments you wield. A couple of these features add bonus fusions to a weapon you wield. No weapon can gain a fusion it already has. However, these bonus fusions don’t count toward the maximum total level of fusions the weapon can have at once.

The guard fighting style focuses on defense. You become adept at wearing armor, protecting against attacks, and enduring damage and other setbacks from attacks that get through your defenses.

The hit-and-run fighting style focuses on tactical movement as you move in and out of combat. You use ranged weapons but fight close up, and you can even mix ranged and melee attacks. Your abilities allow you to move even when you make full attacks and to avoid getting locked down by your enemies.

You’re a master of hunting all sorts of creatures, from big-game animals to runaway criminals and similar marks. You may use this expertise as a sniper, trophy hunter, sport enthusiast, or fugitive tracer. Far more focused on skills than other soldiers, your unique talents combine experience in the field with refined combat ability.

A fair fight might earn a soldier bragging rights, but it’s just as likely to earn them a shallow grave. To compensate for their smaller stature, kobolds often employ traps to hinder their foes and level the playing field. Most notably, this fighting style relies on deploying inexpensive proximity mines and making cunning strikes while an opponent is rattled by the explosions.

A soldier’s familiar rifles and heavy weapons are often too obvious for discreet work, but pistols are easily concealed and, in the right hands, elegant engines of death. The pistol dancer combat style teaches you to wield small arms to devastating effect while moving with precision to sidestep the usual tactics employed by other gunfighters.

You specialize in getting the most out of unwieldy weapons, swinging the likes of doshkos and swoop hammers with unstoppable force. After all, you only need to hit your opponent once, as long as you hit them hard enough.

You are able to tap into your personal life force, enabling you to unleash incredible strikes upon your foes. Whether you’ve discovered these techniques on your own or studied at ancient monasteries and temples devoted to these lost arts, yours is a power cultivated through intense training and skill.

No wilderness gets the better of you, and thanks to your special training and hard-learned lessons, your leadership might be crucial to your companions surviving the wilds as well.

The sharpshoot fighting style enables you to excel at making accurate attacks, usually with ranged weapons at a long distance. You can ignore cover and other impediments to your shots, and your attacks are improved by your intense focus.

The shock and awe fighting style excels at overwhelming enemies senses with overpowering auditory and visual stimuli. You can modify your weapons to issue thunderous booms or blazing flashes of light, at the same time mitigating these effects with regard to your own senses. This style is strongest with weapons that deal sonic damage or that affect an area.

The silent slayer fighting style focuses on lurking quietly in the shadows and striking in close combat without warning. You train heavily in the use of melee weapons and light armor, pushing both beyond their normal limits, and eventually learn to fade away as quickly as you emerge.

This fighting style enables soldiers to harness arcane abilities that enhance their attacks and defenses.

Soldiers in large organizations, such as the Stewards, learn to fight effectively together in small squads. You have mastered these techniques, and your combat skills focus on aiding your allies. Halfelves epitomize the cooperative spirit this style taps into.

Vast as space may be, the reality of starship rooms and space station corridors is far more cramped. The tunnel striker fighting style specializes in swiftly navigating, controlling, and clearing tight spaces, all while capitalizing on the devastating impact of area effects.

The wrathful warrior style draws upon your emotions—specifically your rage and wrath—to enable devastating attacks. You may have trained yourself to intentionally overload your fight-or-flight adrenaline response, or may just come from a long line of berserker warriors. At higher levels, you’re able to use your anger to ignore damage and strike with impudence.