Pathfinder

Of the 6 Career Skills, choose 3 to get a free rank. Of the 4 Specialization Skills, choose 2 to get a free rank.

Seeker Career Skills: Charm, Coercion, Knowledge (Lore), Knowledge (Outer Rim), Perception and Vigilance

Pathfinder Specialization Skills: Medicine, Ranged (Light), Resilience and Survival

A Mystic begins play with a Force rating of 1

Few are as capable of exploring a planet and discovering its secrets as a Pathfinder. The combination of Pathfinders’ Force talents and their training enables them to quickly and precisely complete a search, even under the most adverse conditions. A Pathfinder can survive in a hostile wilderness for weeks or months, living off the land with minimal supplies and possibly a faithful companion animal. In fact, some Pathfinders are said to be able to bond with their companions through the Force, communicating with them mentally, seeing through their senses, and even directing their actions.

The Pathfinder's skills are focused on complementing the Seeker’s career skills, so that the character becomes even more capable of operating independently. The addition of Medicine is primarily for personal benefit but can also be useful in aiding the character’s companions.

Some Pathfinders follow this career because they discover they have a knack for independent survival. This is most commonly true for Force-sensitive individuals who matured on primitive and uncivilized planets.

If his small community was surrounded by hostile wilderness, a character is certain to have spent his youth exploring that environment—likely making friends with many of the wild animals present there. Pathfinders’ natural abilities likely led them to a position of some responsibility within their tribe. Their roles might have included securing the safety of the surrounding wilderness and maintaining any trails leading to agricultural resources or other necessities needed by the community’s residents.

Others who follow the Pathfinder career do so out of a preference for the company of animals over that of sentient beings. Through their Force abilities, some learn to establish effective communications with the relatively primitive minds. In these interactions, they find that they enjoy the sincerity and straightforward nature of wild creatures.

Potential Backgrounds

  • Exile: Like their Navigator compatriots, Pathfinders could have easily find themselves in trouble after their wandering led them into someone else’s territory. Alternatively, Pathfinders could have become scapegoats for the misdeeds of other wilderness wanderers, finding themselves pursued for crimes they did not commit while perpetrators escaped scot free. However their wanderings brought them their now dangerous situations, these Pathfinders must continue to seek routes that take them far from home.
  • Quester: Wherever Pathfinders might go, there is always something new waiting over the horizon. Whether climbing mountains or forging safe trails across forsaken bogs, they are always planning the next expedition, moving ever onward toward the next unexplored trail. Staying still might not come easily to these characters, though sometimes even Pathfinders might be glad of the opportunity to rest and plan for their next great challenge.
  • Recluse: While some Seekers may hail from distant and uncharted regions of the galaxy, if they have the skills of Pathfinders, those areas are not going to be considered undiscovered for long. Pathfinders from remote regions take the hardiness and gumption that their upbringing instills in them and use them to establish new trails across planetary surfaces and interstellar nebulae others would consider impassible. Whether they open up their homeworlds to the wider galaxy or delve even farther into the unknown, they are sure to make an impact with their talents.
  • Survivor: Delving into the unknown spaces on planetary maps and star charts is a dangerous practice, and so it should be no surprise that many Pathfinders regularly court danger and conflict. To some extent, all Pathfinders must be survivors, as they never know what they might encounter while they forge onward into uncharted territory. However, some among them are tested more regularly than others, as they seek out or stumble upon new and unknown dangers. Each time they survive such an encounter, the next becomes less fearsome to them, and they grow to master their path.
  • Wanderer: Pathfinders are masters of life on the move, but not all of them choose to use their skills constantly. Some Pathfinders prefer to work only as necessary, and stay at home—or at least in the same general area—when the situation doesn’t demand travel. Those who stay more mobile are able to hone their skills to the utmost, until eventually they can be as comfortable bunking down on rocky cliffs or ice caverns as they would be upon sheets of Corellian nanosilk.