Hello folks!

I am about to adventure into the realm of Star Wars rpg and stumbled upon this site as I was looking for inspiration and thought I could ask you for help.

We are a new group and we was asked by the DM to have at least one pilot and I volunteered, but I am lost as to where to go from here

I usually start with my characters personality, and I think I will go for a stereotypical speed junkie that can almost drive anything he gets his hands on and love speeds over all else. He isn't all to careful when driving, if the thing he drives breaks down he might just "borrow" from someone close to the wreckage. I will probably try to play him cocky bit since I am rather timid in real life I think it will be hard

And he will have some medicin as cross-class I think its called from mending himself from crashes that happened because of others around him (in other words we have no medic and the DM said it would be good if someone had a bit in medicine ).

So, I was thinking about Ace: Hotshot or Ace:Pilot/Driver seemed nice (not really able to tell a big difference between these two), I am allowed to take from any book. I am not really going for min-max, just interested in playing a very good pilot that might not be good at much else, just not to bad to be a burden on my teammates. Played a trader once who knew nothing of fighting but had the special ability to flee and make it hard for people to follow him... which I used in combat and caused some problems (and lots of laughs) to my teammates. So more interested in tips to make a fun to play pilot then a good pilot that also will survive a campaign.

So any tips and ideas are more then welcome to how to think when creating a pilot/daredavil/speed junkie when it comes to talents, abilities and even species. Our DM have no real restrictions when it comes to books or so when thinking about career/species so therefor I seek advice from those who know more.

Have a nice evening all!

Write you later / mczon

I've got only the EotE-Line yet, so I know nothing about AoR or FaD specializations. But I'm absolutely in love with the Driver-Specialization (and the Explorer-Career)

It's designed to fly practically any ship/speeder/... you could stumble across. As Mechanics is a career skill, too, you can keep your flying piles of junk in the air as well.

For species, I'd take a Duro. Storywise, they are natural pilots, explorers and astronavigators, so that fits perfectly. They start with a Strength of 1 and their Intelligence is 3 (good for playing as a mechanic and as a medic) and 100 starting XP.

The question is now if you want a more min-maxed or a more versatile character.

very min-maxed: take 10 Bonus XP for Obligation/Duty --> 110XP: Raise Agility to 3 (30XP) and both Agility and Intelligence to 4 (40XP each). You would be very good at piloting, mechanics and healing, but quiet bad at anything else. I personally would rather play a less min-maxed character.

a bit Min-Maxed: Raise Agility to 3 (30XP), either Agility or Intelligence to 4 (40XP, I'd probably take Agility, after all you're a Pilot first and foremost) and either Cunning, Willpower or Presence to 3 (30XP, probably Cunning, after all you apparently want to play a bit Grand Theft Starship...). That Character is still weak in Strength, but apart from that quite well rounded. With an agility of 3 or 4 you'd be a good shot as well, so you shoudn't worry about regular combat, and thanks to Cunning/Presence you could prevail in a social encounter as well...

very versatile: take 10 Bonus XP --> 110XP: Raise Strength to 2 (20XP), Agility and two other characteristics to 3 (3x30XP) --> you start with two characteristics of 2 and four of 3.

I'd go the middle road: Characteristics: 1-4-3-3-2-2

By the way, as you want to go the route of a speed-junky, may I propose the Obligation addiction: Booster Blue? A drug that is often consumed by pilots in the GFFA...

Of course, these are just some ideas and suggestions ;-)

Have fun playing!

Edit has something to say about skills:

-naturally, skills for you are piloting (space and planetary), mechanics, gunnery, astrogation, medicine and maybe skullduggery (if you have to get a new ship very fast...). I'd probably invest in either Ranged(light) or (heavy) as well.

Find out what rules and conditions the GM has access to and will be in play at what point. If you'll have lots of friendly fighters in the Squadron rules, you may want to take something like Squadron leader.

Find out any house rules your DM will be using. The vehicle system isn't universally loved, and there's a lot of different house rule sets out there. Some are modest tweaks, some are virtual total rewrites.So its important going in to know certain details and how they will effect play. No sense taking a tree that's heavy on a talent you'll get no use out of thanks to a system tweak.

Figure out what are you hoping to fly/drive, and under what conditions.Freighters, fighters, and speeders work differently and will come attached to different encounter structures. By extension some Specs work better with each of these. This is also a good opportunity to evaluate details and see what the GM has in mind. If your GM is planning a Top Gun style campaign, with encounters rarely going more then 2 vs. 2, something like hotshot is a good call. If he wants a larger feel and is going to be squadroning you with a dozen minions, you may want a more leadership oriented Spec to really get the squadron mechnics rolling.

--------------------

Without a full analysis, a couple stand out points between Driver and Pilot are:

1) Pilot has more Astrogation talents, which may be good, or a waste of XP depending on what your'e doing.

2) They each have several significant talents (Master Pilot & Driver) that allow rerolls, but only with their respective skill. So no rerolling a Space Piloting check with Master Driver.

3) Driver does give you early access to tricky target, which can be a big deal when taking something like a Sil 2 skyhopper up against a Sil 3 TIE Fighter.

4) As Ace, Smuggler, and Explorer Career specs, the one you start with define the Signature abilities you have access to. So for the long game consider if Unmatched Mobility, This One's Mine, Unmatched Survivability, or Unmatched Fortune seem better.

Have you thought about your character being a paramedic?

Drives whatever passes for an air ambulance (think clone gunship or LAAT!) and has a reason why they're speed junkies if that requires them to be ready to move at the drop of a hat, has medical training and a convenient excuse to start off with something a bit more unusual as their vehicle.

Of course the others would rather skip to other planets but for a starting game having a base and a means of transportation until they get the training and experience to look offworld I thought a legitimate reason for your character's tendencies may help more?

if you are specifically looking at Pilot Vs. Hotshot (and I love both specs to absolute pieces for different reasons) the biggest difference in play style between the two of them to my mind is Pilot has a lot going for it in terms of defensive abilities, where as Hotshot is more about some interesting and highly flavorful offense abilities. Corellian Sendoff makes me giddy -every time- i read it, Koiogran Turn is a pretty breathtaking talent in terms of offense/defense in Silhouette 3 or smaller vessels that tend not to have the benefits of guns that shoot behind them, and there are so many good talents that affect the pilot strain economy that it really makes it hard for me to choose between the two of them with a pilot character I will be playing in an upcoming game, so I am planning ahead on taking both.

Now, all the above comments about how much Astrogation and things like Galaxy Mapper are going to help you out are valid and things you should work out with your GM, so if those aren't big deals you can compare Driver to Hotshot instead, though you don't have access to "Brilliant Evasion" which affects Planetary or Space piloting, and basically says "That dude can't shoot me for a while" which has some remarkable defensive ramifications, and basically trade "Nah-Nah-Na-Boo-Boo, you can't shoot me" for even more BLISTERING SPEED with Full Throttle, Improved Full Throttle, and Supreme Full Throttle. Also note that group of talents doesn't care if you are Planetary, or Space.

If you are going Ace for career, the other two specs you may want to look at much further down the road are Rigger and Gunner. Depending on how you want to play, i would certainly get all the fun piloting talents first, but once you've gotten all the goodies out of Pilot or Hotshot, or both (depending on how long the game runs) you may want to go gunner to turn your ship's weapons (assuming you don't have a gunner) into absolute nightmares of shield cracking, speed reducing, glowing death, Or rigger to pick up some back up mechanical talent, and to keep that ship you love so much flying.

Now, all of this (which I imagine doesn't really narrow your options, but hopefully exposes a lot of the variables to help you make a wise decision) basically leaves you a one trick pony. Separate you from the big, expensive, tin can filled with highly explosive fuel, and you don't have a lot to fall back on but bravado and brass. As an alternative to the super focused Pilot Guy, If you go Smuggler, this gives you a different set of synergies to look at that allow you to be relevant inside a cockpit and out. Charmer gives you the option to play the Face, a strong social-fu contender as well as the vehicular master, thief gives you a lot of utility that will help you *cough* borrow *cough* a new ride when you need one, and gunslinger gives you something to do in combat outside your ship other than duck for cover, take potshots, and contemplate just how much open ground is between you and the vehicle of your choice.

Now, all of these are focused on single career synergies to minimize the "out of career" XP tax, but 10 extra XP can be pretty easy to come by, which opens up entire new galaxies of possibilities for what to do when you aren't hands on stick and throttle.

Also, when it comes to species, there are many, many options, but I would recommend a couple over others. Corellian Human comes up in a hurry for being able to stack piloting out the gate higher than any other race. Humans are also versatile if not exactly the most out there if you have a hankering for exotic alien species. Duros make excellent astrogators, but if you aren't planet hopping, that won't help as much, but they can get a free rank in Piloting (Space) to help get a jump start. Sullustans also get a big bump to Agility out the gate with a similar racial boost to astrogation with the added benifit of a free rank in the "Skilled Jockey" talent to help negate setbacks from driving or flying like you stole it. Xexto also start at 3 agility and that free additional maneuver every turn can come in handy, but there are some steep prices you pay for that at character creation. Plus, 4 arms means you don't need cup holders, and can almost get away without using pockets.

All this being said, to kind of lay out my XP road map for my own pilot, I went Ace for maximum one trick pony as discussing with the rest of the players meant I knew we were going to have a gunslinger, a vibrosword wielding maniac, and maybe a heavy weapons user (so if I am caught out of the cockpit I feel confident that my lack of exciting talents or wound threshold won't leave any one but me in a bind), a medic who is stacking int like it's going out of style (so I don't have to be the brains of this operation, beyond needing to do the math to get me from star system to star system, and patch up my ride), and one as yet specified character that will try and pick up the slack. Being free to double down on pilot, I went Corellian to make out of the gate 3 ranks in space piloting possible, and diversified my characteristics, raising Agility (the most important stat for straight up piloting), Intellect (for astrogation and mechanics checks) and Cunning (mostly for flavor and some down the road synergy) to 3. For my starting skills, I have one rank each in astrogation, mechanics, piloting (planetary), and gunnery, and 3 ranks in piloting space. For talents, I went straight across the top of Pilot for Full Throttle (to give me the edge when attempting to Gain the Advantage), Skilled Jockey (because setbacks are for lesser pilots), Galaxy mapper (see previous comment, plus faster life saving math!) and Let's Ride (because who wants to burn a maneuver to hop in the cockpit?). if you do the follow along math, this means I did take that extra obligation to get some more starting XP. So, i'm a wanted man in my dear old home system, and someone is blackmailing me because my past life in CorSec may not exactly endear me to my new fellow criminals. My early plans for XP involve bouncing about with gunnery, mechanics, and planetary piloting, and rushing for Brilliant Evasion, followed by master pilot, and hitting up "This One is Mine" as soon as feasibly possible. After that, i will either go Hotshot or Rigger, depending on weather or not I feel I need to become a mechanic for the group, with a final eye towards maybe some day growing up into a squadron leader. My priorities for dedications will be Agility, Presence, then either Cunning, or more Agility.

Now the above plan is, like I said, stacking the ever living daylights out of being "THE" pilot, not just "A" pilot, and there are many other ways to accomplish a similar goal with an eye towards more or less diversity and most people won't want to plan out XP that far in advance because no plan survives contact with the enemy, but I figure after laying out a myriad of possibilities, at least one look at a very specific, very dedicated pilot plan may be of use.

Anyway, hope that helps! Clear skies!

Woaw, thanks for all the suggestions and pointers... even though you gave me more to think about
Well, from not knowing where to focus at least I am looking at one direction now.

But true, the group and rp dynamics is important when creating a character and I missed that. I looked some up and it seems like we will be playing in the age of rebellion era and have like a Firefly scenario (for now).

We are a crew of outlaws flying in the outer rims and just trying to get by after the wars, avoiding the imperials and we soaring space in a YT-2400 . If no one has Astrogation we can have a droid in the ship but I feel it more fun if a player has it. I think the plan later might be that we join the rebellion but we are smugglers in the beginning of the adventure and we will see what our DM has in store for us.

The setup of the group (so far, we are creating characters this coming week) is:
A Hired gun: enforcer, the heavy hitter and also have some social skills

A LOM-droid with a free will who is going to be some kind of mechanic, and a bit of "crazy scientist" who makes things go boom (hopefully not the ship)

A Bounty hunter: Assasin, or some other stealth like character who was talking about maybe going long range sniper like character. So will be good with ranged weaponry.

So as I can see it we have two who can fight well, the hired gun was thinking of having big melee weapons and the assassin has a few different rifles. The mechanic will probably use some kind of explosives so I have the feeling in combat we will manage.

Social skills I also think we will manage on, she who plays the hired gun wanted to have good presence so I think that helps and the assassin needs to be good to get jobs I guess.

So I think I am free to focus on my piloting skills, yay

I find that the Pilot spec is very strong because of the quick access to Dead to Rights and then the Improved version of it. These talents make short work of any comparable craft.

Woaw, thanks for all the suggestions and pointers... even though you gave me more to think about

Well, from not knowing where to focus at least I am looking at one direction now.

But true, the group and rp dynamics is important when creating a character and I missed that. I looked some up and it seems like we will be playing in the age of rebellion era and have like a Firefly scenario (for now).

We are a crew of outlaws flying in the outer rims and just trying to get by after the wars, avoiding the imperials and we soaring space in a YT-2400 . If no one has Astrogation we can have a droid in the ship but I feel it more fun if a player has it. I think the plan later might be that we join the rebellion but we are smugglers in the beginning of the adventure and we will see what our DM has in store for us.

The setup of the group (so far, we are creating characters this coming week) is:

A Hired gun: enforcer, the heavy hitter and also have some social skills

A LOM-droid with a free will who is going to be some kind of mechanic, and a bit of "crazy scientist" who makes things go boom (hopefully not the ship)

A Bounty hunter: Assasin, or some other stealth like character who was talking about maybe going long range sniper like character. So will be good with ranged weaponry.

So as I can see it we have two who can fight well, the hired gun was thinking of having big melee weapons and the assassin has a few different rifles. The mechanic will probably use some kind of explosives so I have the feeling in combat we will manage.

Social skills I also think we will manage on, she who plays the hired gun wanted to have good presence so I think that helps and the assassin needs to be good to get jobs I guess.

So I think I am free to focus on my piloting skills, yay

Glad you are getting to double down on pilot! it sounds like you have a pretty decently diverse group to help give everyone a niche to shine in, and make you a very effective team.

Glad you are getting to double down on pilot! it sounds like you have a pretty decently diverse group to help give everyone a niche to shine in, and make you a very effective team.

As their GM, I'm looking forward to seeing them in action.

Glad you are getting to double down on pilot! it sounds like you have a pretty decently diverse group to help give everyone a niche to shine in, and make you a very effective team.

As their GM, I'm looking forward to seeing them in action.

Give 'em both barrels!

Hotshot sounds like it's up your alley. You can always worry about your 2nd class later. Tho in other games I plan my build out pretty thoroughly from the get go, I find in SW letting my character grow organically works better. Maybe after you play for a while, you'll realize you don't need a full medic class, and can just take it out of class, allowing you to grab another pilot spec.. making you UBER PILOT. Or the party is always getting hurt and you can grab medic and be the ambulance driver.

I had a pilot/rigger/gunner. Owned the skies

Gunner is nice, cause it gives you punch in the air and the ground.

Sounds like a solid group. Have fun!

Yea, I hope it will be lots of fun! And again, thanks for all the pointers. Will probably go towards a one-trick-pony towards pilot and just add a bit in medicine as cross-class and probably get a pilot/hotshot combo... and roll a dice about which one first. But hmm.. maybe add gunner in there, we have a mechanic that will hopefully keep the ship flying so I think I can skip rigger for more piloting.

So off to work and tonight my pilot will be made!

Thanks again!

Hehe well, no plans survive the first contact... with character creation
We didn't have anyone who could talk in the group so going from pilot/hobby doctor to pilot/smooth talker I did

Well, I don't mind, can be fun to play as well, I still get to be a pilot but I will probably go Smuggler instead of Ace so I can pick up some more smooth talking skills.

But question whats a good species? I was thinking of maybe Nagai or Twi'lek but I am not so familiar with the species and since I have already asked a lot of questions I thought that since my premise changed a bit I could ask some more questions here

So, instead of a speed junkie (s)he (probably he but who knows) will be a skilled pilot that knows how to talk himself out of problems rather then fighting himself out. Knowing how to approach people and say just the right things to be able to get his friends on the star ship and get away before the confused drug lord realized what it was (s)he had rely said and get furious but just a tiny bit to late.

So... can I pick your brain about a character like this? I was thinking of maybe 3-4 agi since I would still be the pilot, and 3 cunning/presence and leave brawl at 1. Does that sound good?
And species I am lost with so if anyone have hints here I am more then happy to take them

Thanks for the help so far but because of a banana peel in the end I stumbled in another direction and in this new path I once again seek your guidance.

Write you later / Mczon

Consider a Bothan Smuggler with a mix of Pilot and Scoundrel. I'd probably start with just one of those and pick the second one up later.

Ahh those looks nice....but... my character plans died
Since we where in short supply of someone with rhetoric we divided piloting skills to the group and now I am going on a full rhetoric character instead, maybe a Falleen or something.

But if I make a pilot in the future, I know where to look, now I need to go back to the drawing board and make a character that really knows how to talk the talk and help my friends from dying in the underworld because they said/did something stupid .

Its funny how 24 hours and a character creation meeting can change your plans so drastically when it comes to your character.

Falleen is a fine choice. I'm also a fan of Toydarians. But if you still plan on sharing some piloting responsibilities, you'll need to invest some XP into Agi.

Nope, the pilot responsibilities have been thrown towards my teammates.
A Toydarian you say, pesky little flying buggers... could work. I have fallen a bit under the "what species looks cool" disease but I will hopefully get over it