Official Starfinder Character Sheet: Can a skill's @{xxxx_ranks} field be modified by the MODS field?

The answer is probably going to be 'no', but i haven't found any specific documentation as of yet.  The specific purpose i'm trying to achieve is to automatically add a skill rank (and refund the spent Skill Points) for the once-per-level free skill rank for two skills that comes as part of an Operative's Specialization. Simply put, a modifer that takes @{class_1_level} and adds that to, say, @{culture_ranks} and @{sense_motive_ranks}, and either subtracts from {@skill_points} or adds to {@skill_points_max} to offset the free rank. The less elegant solution and my backup is to essentially take class level and add it to the skill modifers, and since i won't be multiclassing, just leaving the ranks as zero. But that feels janky. I thought that the custom attribute field in the mods popup would allow manual entry of these, but instead seems to not really do anything, and there's no documentation i can find that explains the custom attribute thing. It doesn't even seem to do anything to the custom attributes that can be added in the attributes and abilities tab, so i'm at a loss. Anyone got ideas?

Hi Jean, Unfortunately, the answer is indeed no. In general, only calculated values on the sheet can be buffed. You can find details on all the biffable attributes on the sheet's wiki page and appendix . There are several ways that people handle an operatives bonus skill ranks depending on preference. You can find details on these by looking through the sheet's forum thread , but they mostly come down to two options. The first is to buff the number of skill ranks available and manually enter the ranks. The second is to buff the skill totals in question. Assuming your first class was operative, his would look like: +@{class_1_level}+3 Operative Ranks to acrobatics and stealth I hope that helps, and welcome to the drift, Scott Edit: additionally this may  become more automated when the character mancer is complete.

Scott C. said: Hi Jean, Unfortunately, the answer is indeed no. In general, only calculated values on the sheet can be buffed. You can find details on all the biffable attributes on the sheet's wiki page and appendix . There are several ways that people handle an operatives bonus skill ranks depending on preference. You can find details on these by looking through the sheet's forum thread , but they mostly come down to two options. The first is to buff the number of skill ranks available and manually enter the ranks. The second is to buff the skill totals in question. Assuming your first class was operative, his would look like: +@{class_1_level}+3 Operative Ranks to acrobatics and stealth I hope that helps, and welcome to the drift, Scott Edit: additionally this may  become more automated when the character mancer is complete. Thank you Scott :)  I'll likely go for that last solution in the meantime. I'll also be putting a note in the skill description that Ranks = [[@{class_1_level}]] for the sake of keeping track. This sheet is a lot of fun to tinker with, and even though there are some shortcomings i'm pretty happy with how it handles most things. Though darn I wish it had a sheet template for non-ship vehicles. ah well. thanks for the help ^^

You're welcome, and glad you like it. Head on over to the forum thread and drop a reply with what else you'd like to see.