Hello, and welcome to Iconic Design! I’m Alexander Augunas, the Everyman Gamer, and have I ever told you that I adore She-Ra and the Princesses of Power? It’s such a fun, wholesome cartoon that does a great job of being something fresh and new and exciting. And one of the freshest, most newest additions to the She-Ra universe is a character called Double Trouble, a villainous nonbinary person added to the show’s newest season. Double Trouble is big trouble for She-Ra and her friends, so today in homage of this awesome character I’m going to build them in Starfinder. WITH CHARACTER OPERATIONS MANUAL!
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Right then, let’s get started!
Build Concept
- Race: vesk
- Alternate Ability Adjustments: venomthought
- Alternate Racial Traits: observant (replaces fearless)
- Class: envoy 12
- Envoy Improvisations: clever feint (2nd), clever attack (4th), get’em (6th) improved get’em (8th), hidden agenda (10th), spell gem understanding (12th)
- Expertise Talent: borrowed guise (3rd), master of disguise (7th), extra change shape form (11th)
- Alternate Class Features: polymorphic disguise
- Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (1st), Weapon Specialization (Bonus; 3rd), Skill Synergy: Bluff, Disguise (3rd), Skill Synergy: Diplomacy, Sense Motive (5th), Mobility (7th), Spring Attack (9th), Weapon Focus: unarmed strike (11th)
Playing the Build
So from what we see of Double Trouble in She-Ra, there are a few noteworthy things about them. They imply to have some measure of skill at sorcery, are adequate hand-to-hand fighters, are extremely nimble, and have potent shapeshifting powers. They’re also a lizard-like humanoid creatures. Although reptoids seem like an obvious choice, I went with vesk if only because that makes this build a little bit easier to get legalized at most GMs’ tables. Plus vesk are cool and don’t get played enough. New alternate racial traits venomthought and observant are a must for Double Trouble; venomthought changes the vesk’s ability scores, notably giving them a Charisma bonus for perfect envoy synergy while observant gives a MASSIVE +3 racial bonus to Sense Motive checks. That’s currently the highest racial bonus in the game to a general skill use that isn’t from a Speed (Ysoki get +5 to Acrobatics, but only to tumble through an enemy’s space).
Now, the build. Envoy with polymorphic disguise. This alternate class feature replaces expertise and all skill expertise options with a scaling polymorph ability that you can use to become a variety of different playable species. You get one form initially, but we’re building in room to pick up a second with our expertise talent options. Speaking of which, you can still take expertise talents, but you basically need to spend Resolve Points to use them. Borrowed guise and master of disguise are incredibly potent; the former allows you to steal a person’s stuff to disguise yourself as them while the later applies a massive penalty reduction to your Disguise checks. VERY helpful. I also picked up spell gem understanding so Double Trouble could run around with some helpful spell effects, like disguise self.
Feat-wise, Double Trouble’s got Improved Unarmed Strike, Mobility, Spring Attack, and Weapon Focus: unarmed strike. As a vesk, they also get the insanely good 1-1/2 × level version of Weapon Specialization from their vesk racial trait, meaning this build can dish out some damage when it hits (which is helped via clever attack and improved get’em). Since you don’t have expertise, I also put in Skill Synergy with Double Double’s most important skills to make sure they stay competitive.
Other Notes
There’s one major magitech augmentation you’ll REALLY want for this build: Morphic Skin, as it eventually allowing you to basically turn into any creature of the same type. For Double Trouble, this means any humanoid. This ensures that you can use your augmentations to appear as others while saving change shape to transform into common creatures in your system that are of a different type. For example, in the Pact Worlds Double Trouble would probably have one of their “extra forms” be that of an undead elebrian from Eox because they’re relatively common in the Pact Worlds system.
You might be wondering why you want the polymorphic disguise alternate class feature at all if morphic skin exists. The answer to that is that polymorphic disguise’s shapeshifting gives you real, powerful transformations that can be used to pick up abilities you wouldn’t normally have. Use it intelligently!
In Conclusion,
You can use the new Character Operations Manual book to make a very convincing double of She-Ra’s Double Trouble. You’re an awesome shapechanger, able to be anyone whenever you want using your mystical abilities. Of course, your real talent isn’t your shapechanging, it’s your ability to perfectly depict others using words and method acting. After all, anyone can shapeshift but it takes an artist to transform….
Thanks for joining me this week, everyone. For my next article, I’m going to do a PF2 build of a rogue that don’t need no Nimble Dodge to show you just how easy (and profitable) it is to say NO to an underwhelming feat. Take care, everyone!
Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex also cohosts the Private Sanctuary Podcast, along with fellow blogger Anthony Li, and you can follow their exploits on Facebook in the 3.5 Private Sanctuary Group, or on Alex’s Twitter, @AlJAug.
