With my play group, we will finish our current campaign, ending each player's personnal storyline and then moving on to another story with brand new characters. Since we play once every 2 months, it should take 9-12 months to finish the campaign. So I still have lots of time to think about my character....

One idea I had was to make a member of a civilian Search & Rescue unit based in the Outer Rim, publicly or privately owned, just not military. Long story short, they responded to a distress call from a nearby asteroid field, they dispatched and found the damaged vessels and the team moved to rescue the survivors. Right in the middle of the rescue, an Imperial cruiser got out of hyperspace and without warning destroyed every craft it found. Injured, he nevertheless survived the imperial onslaught but his ship was badly damaged. It took him a few days to patch up his wounds and repair the ship enough to reach the nearest inhabited star system. Meanwhile, the Imperial told his family and the press that the whole S&R unit was killed by rebel insurgents that laid a trap for them and that the Imperials got there too late. What will he do now ? if the Empire finds out he's still alive, they will hunt him down.... His friends and teammates shouldn't have died in vain, they should have justice, the "world" should know the truth.

With that background, there are a few skills that I would like my character to have....

- Astrogation / Mechanics : he did repair his ship and jump back to the nearest inhabited star system

- Athletics / Coordination : zero-g training, rescue training, physically fit

- Perception / Vigilance : to find survivors and spot incoming dangers

- Survival : trained to rescue people in space, but also on hostile planets

- Outer Rim / Xenology : knowledge of the places he could go and the dangers he could face

- Piloting(space) / Piloting(planetary) : what good could he do if he also crashes?

- Medecine : to heal the survivors

I think that's the basics... you could add Discipline because he's selfless and puts others before him, or any combat skill to show he can defend himself if attacked by wild beasts.

Now the problem I have is that BEST spec for the skills I want isn't that fitting...

- Starfighter Ace could be a good fit for the Space part of the character.... Skilled Jockey, Solid Repairs, Confidence and Galaxy Mapper are great talents that fuel the character's story, but the other more combat oriented talents feel kinda out of place. With Athletics, Brawl, Cool, Melee, Perception, Survival, Astrogation, Gunnery, Mechanics, Piloting(Space), you've got 6 skills I wanted out of the 10 you get.

- Pathfinder is another spec that could fit the story, the hostile planet rescue part... Keen Eyed, Outdoorsman and Swift are good talents to help find people on distant worlds, but the Animal bonding part doesn't really go with the character, he's probably more of a droid lover then a beast lover. With Knowledge(Xenology), Piloting(planetary), Piloting(Space), Ranged(Heavy), Survival, Vigilance, Medicine, Ranged(Light), Resilience, you've also got 6 skills I wanted out of the 9 you get.

- Hunter is another spec that could fit the story, again the hostile planet rescue part.... Expert Tracker, Uncanny Senses, Uncanny Reactions are also good talents to help find people lost on a inhabited planet. With Knowledge(Xenology), Piloting(planetary), Piloting(Space), Ranged(Heavy), Survival, Vigilance, Coordination, Stealth, you got 6 skills I wanted out of the 8 you get.

- Ataru Striker doesn't have any talents that could fit the character's story.... Conditioned could help show he's physically fit, but nothing else. But with Knowledge(Xenology), Piloting(planetary), Piloting(Space), Ranged(Heavy), Survival, Vigilance, Athletics, Coordination, Lightsaber, Perception, you got 8 skills I wanted ou of the 10 you get.

The problem I have is that the BEST spec for skills doesn't really fit with the story, but the other "good" specs feel lacking. Maybe the Seeker supplement will get published before I make the character, but I still wanted your input on this.... Some other not Force User specs could be good too, but I felt that Seek and Sense were too good for that character. Also, for the record, my favorite Lightsaber spec is Niman Disciple, but Ataru isn't far behind, tied second place with Soresu Defendor.

So, would you go for skills or talents ?

Too much!!

Cut your wish list in half, and order them in order of priority. Then you might have a clearer way forward.

It just seems to me like you wanna do too much with one character. Try to eliminate a few of the possibilities and then see where you find yourself.

Off the cuff, though, it seems like you're going to be utilizing Agility, Cunning, and Intellect to the best effect. I'd start there, raising each characteristic once with your starting XP. This goes out of order a bit, but might help you in your prioritizing, so you can then go back and look and skills and specializations.

Away's right.

Remember that unless the group is starting at Knight Level, you've got to choose between being very capable in a few fields or passingly good in a lot of fields.

I've had PCs in some of the games I've run that tried to spread themselves far too thin in the early going, such as one PC that wanted to be both a pilot (Starfighter Ace) and lightsaber duelist (Shien Expert) as well as invest in various Force powers, with the end result that the character was mildly proficient in a lot of things, but not very good at most of them.

I would set your objectives a bit further away in the future.

For example, to reach your skill list proficiency, I'd think about a combination of 2 Specs, since no single Spec will have all the skills and talents you want.

I love the story,don't change that. But let's look at the character, most Rescue groups are going to have experts; Pilots, Searchers, Coordinators, Tech Experts, in starwars they probably even have Gun Bunnies to deal with wildlife or pirates.

From this I would say this story could be a backstory for an entire PC party! Hence why I think it's an awesome story.

So, which specialist do you want to be? By the sounds of it it's the Searcher, so Hunter or Ataru Striker (with no ranks in Lightsaber!) with a rank or 2 of mechanics out of career. Probably above average Brawn and Agility, then either Cunning, Willpower or Intelligence depending on your eventual goals.

I would say there are quite a few other options in AoR and EotE but I'm assuming this is intended to be a FaD game of Force Users by your OP.

Actually the other career and spec that could work well is the Mystic Seer, where the character has used their force abilities (unknowingly?) to find missing, lost or trapped people.

Something to keep in mind is that the character doesn't necessarily need to have ranks in all of those skills to be reasonably effective at them under typical circumstances. Simply having an Intellect of 3 would be sufficient to cover Astrogation/Mechanics/Medicine/Outer Rim/Xenology, for example; ranks are only needed if the character is supposed to be specialized in that field.

In the case of Piloting skills, those aren't needed just to drive/fly around under normal conditions, so again, you don't need to worry about those unless the character is supposed to be a specialist.

I would focus more on characteristics than skills, and just pick 2-3 skills you could get for free that fit the overall theme of the character. Then boost otehrs with XP as the game goes along. Destiny points and roleplaying can fill in the gaps.