Pilot

Of the 8 Career Skills, choose 4 to get a free rank. Of the 4 Specialization Skills, choose 2 to get a free rank.

Smuggler Career Skills: Coordination, Deception, Knowledge (Underworld), Perception, Piloting (Space), Skulduggery, Streetwise and Vigilance

Pilot Specialization Skills: Astrogation, Gunnery, Piloting (Planetary) and Piloting (Space)

Plenty of folks know how to fly a starship, but a Smuggler who specializes as a Pilot develops a relationship with his ship, and it becomes an extension of his wit and his will. He can make a plodding old transport run far above its performance ratings, and given time and some modifications, he can turn it into one of the fleetest and most maneuverable craft ever to take to the stars. A Pilot's talents further reinforce his dominance in the cockpit.

Pilot is another specialization that rarely leads to unemployment. If a Pilot doesn't already have his own ship (and the inevitable Obligation that goes with it), he will likely be able to sign on with any number of groups, criminal or otherwise. Once he establishes his competency at the controls, he'll be able to get some fairly choice assignments. A Player Character Pilot will be considered indispensable to his group, especially after the first space battle or ship-related crisis.

Potential Backgrounds

  • Disadvantaged: Pilots who have had to train themselves through trial and error, on ships that barely function, can often fly anything, even vessels that have no business in the sky. Being able to keep a rust-bucket aloft has its advantages!
  • Privileged: Pilots who come from money may well treat ships as expensive toys. A Pilot might have chosen the life of a Smuggler because flying illegal routes seemed exciting. Alternatively, his wealth was somehow lost. The destruction of Alderaan left many formerly well-to-do merchant captains with nothing but their ships, and smuggling for the Rebel Alliance is a small way to fight back against the evil of the Galactic Empire.
  • Ex-Military: Pilots who have flown for the military are probably disciplined and highly skilled. Such a Pilot may have turned to a life of smuggling in order to gain the freedom to fly where he wished, or perhaps he found his superiors unjust and could not follow their orders in good conscience.
  • Respectable: Pilots who fly by the book may have spent their early career in a steady job. Such a Pilot might have encountered a corrupt official and, by refusing to pay a bribe, made an enemy and lost his position.
  • Cynical: Pilots might have lost ships or been prevented from purchasing them in the first place. Cheated of the one piece of machinery necessary to make use of his skills and earn a living, a cynical Pilot takes meticulous care of any ship he has the opportunity to fly.
  • Born and Bred: Pilots know and love their ships. The Pilot who grew up op starships will be quick to learn the strengths and weaknesses of any ships he encounters. Once he gets his hands on the controls of one, he’ll bond with it quickly.