#samus aran

So one of the things I like to do on this blog is challenge myself to make Pathfinder or Starfinder builds based on Pop Culture characters that are suggested by my followers! It is, after all, something of a subgenre of tabletop gaming content of the web to ponder how to build a character in a system. No doubt you’ve seen videos or read articles like “How to play The Mandalorian in 5e” and such.

On that note, on previous iterations of that, I did Doomguy/Doom Marine/Doom Slayer as well as Samus Aran, but I wrote them long before Starfinder was a thing, so they were Pathfinder build awkwardly trying to ape characters that run around shooting things.

So, I decided that rather than occupy space on the blog doing updated versions of those builds, I’d do it on my Patreon. And now that said post has been public for a few months… We are here, ironically now taking up space on the blog.

Humor aside, I present to you my Starfinder builds for both Doomguy and Samus!

Doomguy, the Doom Marine, or the Doom Slayer. Whatever you call him, he’s a man that has been through literal hell. Originally, he was a simple marine assigned to a research station on Mars, where they were testing teleportation technology. Unfortunately, such extradimensional travel apparently dips into Hell, so soon the base was overwhelmed by fiends and possessed zombies, with our hero as the lone survivor. Since then, he’s been through several adventures, fighting demons on Mars, Earth, their home turf, in an alternate retelling where nobody taught him how to duct tape a flashlight to a gun, and even into an alternate dimension where he fought alongside alien paladins, only to get betrayed and sealed away until he was freed from his prison just in time to fight the battle against Hell and even Heaven in that reality.

And that sheer level of experience, not to mention being supercharged by alien technology into a semi-immortal superhuman, that we will attempt to recreate here.

In my original pathfinder build for the Doom Marine, I went with dwarf for reasons of keeping consistent speed even in heavy armor and equipment. While such speed reduction is a thing, it’s less a factor in Starfinder, as you can just bolt armor upgrades that beef your speed back up in no time. So, for this build, we will assume human even though it’s not super important. If you do pick human though, definitely consider taking up the “Gravity Dweller” alternate ability adjustment suite.

For class, I pondered others, but really the soldier is the best option for representing all the things that ol’ Doomguy is known for. For this build, we will be using the armor storm and the bullet rain fighting styles, preferably armor storm first to potentially benefit from greater mobility in armor at later levels.

In terms of gear boosts, Automatic Expert makes him a master of maintaining a deluge of deadly firepower from automatic weapons, Brutal Blast is useful for a shotgun, as is Bullet Barrage for any and all projectile weaponry, Heavy Onslaught punishes even the most durable foes, Nimble Juggernaut is also essential to this build to increase his agility, Plasma Immolation burns prey, Powerful Explosion ekes out a little more potency from explosive weapons, and Unarmed Mauler is just plain fun for ripping and tearing. Also consider other gear boosts that favor other weapons that you find useful, as the Slayer never turns down a weapon.

Given his origin as an actual marine in his home dimension, I’d recommend taking the career soldier theme.

Doomguy is a mobile foe that is not afraid to fight with both fist and gun at long and close range. As a result, his feats reflect this with choices like Close Combat, Deadly Aim, Diehard, Far Shot, Grappler Pull, Hauler, Improved Unarmed Strike, Mobility, Opening Volley, Penetrating Attack, and Powered Armor Proficiency. Other feats that improve mobility skills might also be valuable as needed.

In terms of equipment, The Hell Walker should be decked out in good heavy or powered armor, with his armor upgrades focusing on mobility enhancement to reflect the inhuman agility with which he moves. Any augmentations should likely focus on improving his physical stats and abilities as well. Where it gets really interesting is his weaponry, which favors heavy weapons, but also includes scatterguns, a big hecking plasma sword, a chainsaw, assault rifle, rapid-fire plasma rifle, and so on. Doomguy does not shy away from any weapon, but for some of his more iconic pieces, I have some recommendations. The classic BFG 9000 is best represented by a plasma cannon or starheart cannon (sadly no arcing effect), while the ballista could be represented by a plasma conqueror.
The chaingun is naturally either a machine gun or an X-gen gun.
The classic chainsaw could be approximated from a slashing version of the excavation drill, while the doomblade from doom eternal is clearly a retractable spike.
The equipment launcher in all of it’s forms can be represented as a grenade launcher or flamethrower bolted to a weapon slot for a power armor.
The assault rifle could be any automatic projectile weapon, bonus points if it is also a mazecore weapon that can switch to being a gyrojet rifle, representing the micro-missile upgrade.

While there is no longarm-sized automatic plasma weapon, the heat blast and microwave beam add-ons can be represented by the microfusion rifle and the standard plasma rifle respectively. The Unmayker, on the other hand, is best represented by a plasma array, reflecting the sheer amount of hot plasma the weapon can unleash.

Naturally, the rocket launcher is best represented by the IMDS or Novus missile launcher.

And finally, the classic shotgun and super shotgun is best represented by a scattergun, possibly with a built-in grappler for that sweet Meat Hook.

Beyond guns, consider at least picking up a null-space chamber to hold all these lovely toys.

There are, of course, other ways to build the Doom Slayer. For example, you might swap out one of the combat styles in favor of Wrathful Warrior to represent the rage of the berserk powerup, or blitz to help favor moving and attacking. You might even pick up the divine champion archetype to give them an extra edge against fiends.

Interested in cutting down swaths of enemies? Even if you forgo any other reverence to Doom, this could be a fun build indeed.

Next up, let’s talk about Samus Aran.

Another icon of gaming, the founder of the genre that would come to be known as “Metroidvania”. She was also iconic for being one of the first women in gaming, and moreover, one in a game with themes that were decidedly not “girly”, on account of her being
A. A badass bounty hunter in sweet power armor.

And B. in a spooky atmospheric game which has its roots in the likes of the original Alien.

Samus’s parents were killed when space pirates attacked their colony, and almost died herself at the hands of the sadistic Ridley, but ended up being raised by the Chozo, a race of alien bird people who enhanced her with their DNA and trained her in their fighting arts, even gifting her a Chozo Power Suit modified for her human physiology. Since then, she has worked not only with the Galactic Federation, but as a bounty hunter, though honestly, she’s more of a mercenary, rarely if ever actually hunting bounties (Which may have something to do with the fact that Japanese Culture really doesn’t approve of justice coming from outside of authority.) Regardless, she ends up most of the time performing missions which evolve into survival scenarios or even the prophesized destroyer of some great evil.

Now, Samus has finally gotten another classic style game, with another first-person style game in the works, so that’s nice.

What’s interesting about Samus is that her relationship with her armor is very different from the classic ideal of “power armor”. Rather than being cumbersome and bulky, her armor is athletic and agile, especially once given its various mobility upgrades, all of which I will try to reflect here in this build.

For this build, we will go human, though it’s not super necessary. If you do, I’d recommend the Featherlight alternate ability adjustment suite, and the adopted alternate racial trait.

From there, it took a while for me to pin down a class for her, but I finally decided that Samus would be a mechanic with experimental armor. The reason for this being that while she certainly does have many weapons at her disposal which in most games stack on top of each other to create a unique weapon, the focus most of the games have on her upgrading not just her arm cannon, but her entire armor, which with the help of the experimental armor ability, becomes incredibly agile compared to other power armor.

A daughter of colonists, raised by an alien race, working as a soldier, and then as a bounty hunter, Samus certainly qualifies for many themes, but while it is tempting to just give her the bounty hunter theme and call it a day, Samus in fact never truly hunts a bounty on any one specific person in any of the games. She’s more of a mercenary than anything. Honestly the best theme for representing her abilities, in my opinion, is the career trooper theme, granting her several abilities tied to surviving on her own with limited equipment.

Back to the mechanic class, several mechanic tricks prove quite useful for Samus, starting right off with Calibrate Speed to reduce the slowdown of their armor. Energy Shield adds some defense, Visual Data Processor and Nightvision Processor provide greater range of vision, Overcharge and it’s upgraded versions make for a good charge beam analog even on weapons without the boost ability. Bolster Armor and Boost Shield provide added protection, Prototype Tinkerer is useful if you need to completely revise your experimental armor, and so on.

In terms of equipment, your experimental armor lies at the core of this, likely starting out as heavy armor, but moving to powered armor later (typically the more agile and mobile units) and it’s armor upgrades should be drawn from those that upgrade the agility of the armor, such as juggernaut boosters being a good stand-in for the speed booster, as well as those that enhance targeting like the Targeting Computer, quickly reload weapons with Automated Loader, and resist extremes in the environment with Thermal Capacitors. Integrated weapons, while flavored as firing from the same arm cannon, should include things like missile launchers, various energy weapons of different flavors, and so on.

Sadly, there’s no real way to emulate the morph ball in any meaningful way with the armor upgrades. However, cybernetics help flesh out the agility-based abilities that power armor lacks, such as thruster heels for greater leaping, bionic knees for additional acrobatic leaps, the defensive ball graft makes a suitable morph ball substitute, though you cannot move while in that state save for also taking the rolling charge graft, which would replace bionic knees.

While this build assumes power armor, you get a lot more agility-based upgrades in the light and heavy category, which may appeal to you more, though you’ll be forced to either use integrated weapons or expend upgrade slots on weapon mounts unless you are ok with carrying around your guns like a plebian. Beyond this, you might consider picking up the powered armor jockey archetype, or the augmented archetype to get more augmentations. Also consider switching up the theme if that appeals to you.

Looking for a fun agile character with armor that upgrades with them? This build can be a lot of fun even without associating it with the Metroid franchise.

Well, that does it for this entry, and this week of just showing off what I have done on Patreon. Some things like these I eventually make free for everyone, but I hope that these entries were enticing enough that you’d consider supporting in order to see similar stuff early, as well as the stuff that is only available to patrons.

Anyway, thank you all for the love and support you’ve given throughout the years, I hope there will be many to come.