How to Build Wall-e in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game

How to Build Wall-e in the Starfinder RPG

 

I would argue that Wall-e is probably the most iconic sentient robotic organism (SRO) in pop culture. It wasn’t built to be a sentient AI from the beginning but developed sentience after 700 years of working at the task it was built for: IRL Minecraft. And that is exactly what an SRO is in Starfinder: a machine that unexpectedly gained sentience.

Since this is my very first blog post, I thought bringing that character to life would be a great way to get it started!

Wall-e is a robotic compactor left behind on earth when humans abandoned the place due to unchecked garbage and climate collapse. For 700 years, the little robot compacted garbage into little squares and arranged those squares into replica structures.

Eventually, it began collecting objects it liked or thought would be useful. It developed a love of music and even figured out how to repair itself from parts scavenged from its broken robotic kin. It even developed a kinship with a surviving cockroach. It built a shelter and home against inclement weather and kept itself to a schedule that allowed it to maintain it’s power levels.

That peaceful routine was disrupted when a probe from one of the human ships that left returned to search for signs that the environment could sustain life again. That kicked off an adventure for Wall-e that had him face off against a starship’s AI and robotic enforcers. He overcame his challenges by making friends with fellow SROs (the ship had considered broken robots), and awakening the humans on the ship from complacency to the potential they could be meeting.

With that in mind, let us get to the character-building!

Race

As discussed above, Wall-e is clearly an SRO.

Theme

Wall-e’s proclivity to salvage and re-use tech, I think that places him with the Tinker theme.

Class

I strongly considered making Wall-e a mechanic and turning E.V.E. into its drone, but that never felt quite right. Next, I considered making it a Technomancer specializing in all the junk-based spells, to represent Wall-e’s centuries of cleaning up junk. However, the kind of raw power spellcasting gives you just didn’t sit well with Wall-e, who never hurt anything or one it could avoid hurting. Eventually, I settled on Envoy: a highly-skilled class underestimated by nearly everyone. That fit Wall-e perfectly, I think.

The Attributes

Strength
Wall-e is strong. If you’ve ever seen a compacter in real life, you should expect this. Early on in the Wall-e’s story, however, it can grip and hold onto the probe when it returned to its mothership, even as it lifted off and accelerated to interstellar speeds… with nothing but its hands.

Dexterity
While Wall-e was swift and sure, it did not display any particularly special ranged feats and did not seem very dodgy at all. I do not think its dexterity was very high.

Constitution
At first glance, Wall-e might seem like an extremely tough little SRO. But with his ability to swiftly replace parts, I’d say he relied far more on restoring himself than on merely tanking damage, so I don’t think its constitution would be all that high.

Intelligence
Wall-e learns quickly. Even when it was in the entirely foreign environment of the human starship Axiom, Wall-e was able to quickly figure out how to adapt to the changing circumstances to accomplish his goals.

Wisdom
Our intrepid SRO has over 700 years of experience… but it was 700 years of experience in an endless routine.  Wall-e, I think, displays both an ancient wisdom and a childlike innocence at the same time.  I think those factors leave it with an average wisdom score.

Charisma
Despite 700 years of isolation and being covered in filth, Wall-e was easily able to make friends with fellow SROs and Humans alike, pretty-easily. With no possibility of having developed social skills in that kind of isolation, I think it relied on a decent charisma score to pass those checks.

Starting Scores:
Str 16; Dex 10; Con 10; Int 15; Wis 10; Cha 14
Level-up points will go into Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma, leaving Wall-e’s skill points per level and Stamina per level steady without any bursts at certain levels.

Skills

With his stats, Wall-e will be getting ten skill points per level. Envoys have the advantage of having basically every skill on the list as a class skill. So let us look at what skills wall-e displayed.

It built a new skyline, self-repaired, salvaged usable items, and built a home. It clearly has Engineering.

It climbed a latter up the side of a ship, using tracks and his manipulators. Later on, it climbed up an indeterminately long shaft inside the Axiom to reach the command deck and caught and carried back up an object that was dropped down onto it. If that isn’t Athletics, I don’t know what is.

It was able to improvise a fire extinguisher into a space thruster and then perform aerospace acrobatics with it. That’s going to be either piloting or, more likely, Acrobatics... possibly even both though.

It was able to weld several objects together and apart, and since welding tools are advanced melee weapons with the Profession (Contractor) special property, I think we need to give Wall-e that skill as well. And while we are at it, its love of music and dancing could be construed as skill in Profession (Dancer) as well, even though I doubt it’ll ever be picking up a battle ribbon any time soon.

Wall-e spent all of its free time searching for usable items amidst the piles of junk covering the earth. That is the Perception skill.

Throughout the movie, it displays a penchant for becoming and remaining hidden, so I think it can be given the Stealth skill.

Wall-e’s ability to make friends, I think, doesn’t rely on passing diplomacy checks at all. Instead, I think it relies far more on being able to pick up on social cues and navigate foreign cultures.  That is a mixture of the Culture skill and Sense Motive.

Lastly, there were a variety of minor scenes where Wall-e displayed Bluff, Disguise, and Sleight of Hand skills, so I would divide the remaining points between those.

Class features

Skill Expertise

Skill expertise allows you to select certain skills also to apply your expertise bonus too. Wall-e would select first Engineering, then Culture, Bluff, and Diplomacy, probably in that order.

Expertise Talents

Wall-e’s primary focus out of all of these is on Engineering, so I would start off picking Engineering Adept and Student of Technology, and then dive into the also-tech-related Tech Familiarity for the Culture skill.

Since SRO’s use Engineering for all medicine checks, I would also consider asking my GM to allow me to take Medicine related Expertise Talents for use with Engineering instead, but only on things that can be healed by engineering checks.

Envoy Improvisations

Expanded Attunement and Universal Expression will help Wall-e aid its fellow SROs, and also improve its ability to make friends with those humans who might not be able to understand it.

Duck Under, Frustrating Target, and Not in the Face can represent Wall-e’s ability to avoid damage despite being dex-less and armor-less. I’d fill in any other improvisations as necessary.

Feats

The construction of Wall-e’s body makes the Arm Extensions and Kip Up feats natural fits for the SRO.  Hauler might also be a great feat to help represent Wall-e’s immense strength.

One of the first defensive things we ever saw it do was dig into the ground to protect against the exhaust fire of a landing rocket, making Barricade entirely appropriate.

We saw Wall-e yelling to warn everyone around him quite often, opening up the possibility of taking the Startled Scream feat.

And while Wall-e can be KO’d even after that, he is very tough, and always recovered. The diehard feat would be a good way to represent that.

After level 9, taking the skill focus feat for skills you can’t get applies expertise bonuses to might be well worth your time.

Lastly, Technomantic Dabbler, if you want to give Wall-e a few of the Technomancer spells that wouldn’t drastically change him into something else, could be a great idea. I recommend taking Mending along whit either Fabricate Scrap and Junk Armor, or Transfer Charge and Shrink Object; after all, Wall-e is a robotic compactor.

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Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this. As I mentioned earlier, it’s my first blog. This one was inspired by Neal Litherland and his Character Conversion blog posts: https://taking10.blogspot.com/p/character-conversions.html?fbclid=IwAR1TNQHh4iaezBSEJmyKpMd03PFYK5M3aAhZFyT7x1UAfy_kmbkWz-l1rlk

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