Skills Feats and Talents:
Since multiclassing is dead easy in Saga, I don't tend to think in terms of handbooks for one class the way DnD is organized. Instead I look at individual options and why they're good or bad, and let the player assemble them into a whole.
Skills
Pilot Well duh. If you don't take this you're either a Jedi using Force Pilot or reading the wrong guide.
Stealth Not only does Stealth run on the same dex as your pilot skill, but you can use Stealth in the cockpit to avoid notice, a great synergy for a smuggler or a fighter who's suddenly realized she's murderously outgunned by the blockade.
Use Computer You need to make use computer checks to fly into hyperspace. With a dedicated astromech or techie this no longer applies and it's not longer vital to the pilot. However it's also used in place of perception for sensor checks so it's handy there too, although again your astromech can do it for you.
Acrobatics Fueled by the same Dexterity pilot is, acrobatics is fairly useful. It's excellent on the ground for upping your defenses, but also nigh-vital in space since an Acrobatics check will enable you to reach an escape pod (or, at least, a section of ship with air) and survive when the ship breaks up around you. Notice that this acrobatics check has no restrictions on size so theoretically you can do this in your huge fighter, in which case I suggest you frame it as ejecting instead. Wear a flight suit and bring atmosphere canisters so you can survive long enough to be rescued. Or bring a jet pack and rescue yourself.
Mechanics While you don't strictly get any synergy with mechanics, you need mechanics rolls to reroute power and recover the condition track. As with use computer, you can have your astromech do this for you. Unlike use computer, you'll use it very rarely because ships don't go down the condition track much. The tougher your ship, the less likely this is to ever happen. Still, there's usually repairs to be done after the fight as well, so mechanics has decent uses for a pilot.
Treat Injury Hmm? Why is this here? Because, as a pilot, you probably have invested in wisdom to boost your Starship Tactics feat. Since that same attribute fuels Treat Injury, you can get some good mileage out of it and wear a second hat for your team, and treat injury requires few feats and doesn't conflict at all with the pilot role. A surprising number of my pilots turn out to be former ambulance drivers or MASH unit type flyers for this reason.
Initiative There are no situations where getting to shoot first is bad (Just ask Han Solo). However, in the cockpit you can use your pilot skill instead, and since that also benefits from your ship's dex bonus this skill is only mediocre for pilots.
Survival Never comes up, it's a useless useful skill because stranding the entire party and getting everybody killed for lack of an unexpected skill isn't fun, and unless the entire party has survival they're probably going to die because a single survivalist can't scavenge enough food for everybody. Take it if you happen to be invested in Scout, otherwise ignore.
Use the Force While the skill is fueled by Charisma, actual force powers feed on wisdom. With the Force Pilot talent, you can use this skill in place of Pilot and never have to take the pilot skill at all. In general this means that you trade a talent for two feats, since you'll probably also take Skill Focus: Use the Force. However I do not advise trying to combine Jedi and Ace Pilot into the same character, at best a Jedi can be a backup pilot but conflicts between maneuvers and force powers will force you to choose one.
Ride You probably don't need this, as mounts are pitifully poorly supported in-game and you can more easily buy a nice large walker or airspeeder if you want to use your pilot skill and feats on the ground.
Perception You don't use perception in space. Use Computer is substituted instead, making this strictly a ground-only skill.
Feats
Vehicular Combat (Core 88)
A top-notch feat, Vehicular combat lets you ignore one hit per round with a pilot check. Since you should be working to get your pilot skill as high as possible, this means you should be able to reliably erase hits that aren't excellent rolls every time. Not entirely reliable in erasing natural 20 criticals from high-accuracy enemies, for that reserve your Ackbar Slash Maneuver (see below)
Skill Focus: Pilot (Core 89)
You really shouldn't need me to point out why upping your pilot skill is crucial, especially next to the feat above.
Starship Tactics (Starships 20)
Another gimme feat. It's not a bonus feat for any class so you'll have to snag it with your every-3rd level feat slots instead, limiting a lot of your options. Still a good maneuver makes the difference between an “okay” pilot and an ace pilot (also the difference between a dead pilot and one who's still alive.)
Assured Attack (Rebel 28)
Lets you reroll the lowest die on any attack. You can use it everywhere and it's especially beneficial on starship weapons, turning a roll of 1 into an 8 gives you 8 damage on the ground, but 14-35 more points of damage in space thanks to the weapon multiplier. Good for every class, best for pilots.
A Few Maneuvers (Threats 160)
Fairly excellent. +2 to your reflex defense (except on frigates and larger) and best of all, missiles don't get 2 attack rolls against you. Normally the second attack roll isn't a big threat since it's penalized, but several rolls all in one turn risks a natural 20 after you've already used your Vehicular Combat for the turn. This makes that much less likely. Unfortunately it's not a bonus feat for any class, so it competes with your Starship Tactics, making it less valuable.
Burst Fire Core 82)
Works normally on starship weapons. This is, in fact, the only reason to take an autofire starship weapon, which is very expensive and doesn't have the normal advantages of autofire. Remember that with the multiplier effect, adding 2 dice to your starship's laser attack adds an average of 22 more damage, and in a turbolaser you're looking at an average of about +55 damage per shot with burst fire. This takes a feat that, on the ground, is “a nice bonus” and turns it into “absolutely devastating” once you're in space. . . if it hits. The downside is that you're taking a nasty -5 bonus which actually tends to reduce your to-hit total so much you may be doing less damage per round average even with the bonus. Handy if you have a high-damage weapon already, and think you might be able to pierce an enemy's damage threshold but otherwise not that great.
Point Blank Shot (Core 87)
Your starship weapons have a point blank range, hence this fine feat can activate. Note, however, that point blank on starship weapons is
really short, only 1 square for lasers and blasters, while starships can move six squares or even more in one turn so long-range shots happen more often than at character scale, where speed's about the same while even the shorter ranged pistols have a “point blank” range out to 20 squares. Plan accordingly, point blank does not happen as often at starship scales so this isn't the extremely good feat it is on the ground, but on the ground Heavy Weapons have an insane point blank range.
Vehicular Surge (Rebel 30)
Not a bad feat, but not outstanding. Get +25% to your ship's HP, but only when it's already taken 50% damage.
Heavy Weapons Proficiency (Core 89)
Surprisingly good. Since all vehicle weapons count as heavy weapons this can let you fire them without penalty, however that's not strictly needed since Vehicular Combat lets you do that anyway. Why black for a wasted feat then? Because heavy weapons proficiency opens up a number of talents and other awesome feats which will be useful both on the ground and in space (such as
Burst Fire above), and having a blaster cannon on the ground never hurt anybody. Well, except everybody downrange.
Weapon Focus (Core 89)
By itself, it's fairly Meh. +1 just isn't much of a bonus. It opens up Penetrating Attack And Weapon Specialization, however, which catapults it out of Orange Status and into Black, at least.
Talents
Noble:
Wealth Yeah, pretty much superpowers in a can, and even better since it's been errata'd so that you keep your wealth bonus growing when you cross-class. Since this is needed to buy a spaceship in the first place, either you should take it, another player should, or else the GM should have mentioned extra funds for the ship to start with.
Exceptional Skill Apply it to pilot and you're awesome. With this you can never roll low again, aside from natural 1s that happen fairly rarely. Massive synergy with vehicular combat.
Skillful Recovery Potential great synergy with reroll abilities, fail a check, get a force point on your instant reroll. However your GM may rule that the reroll means the roll wasn't a failure in the first place. A source of force points is never bad but failing a pilot roll isn't easy when you're a well built pilot, better applied to use computer or mechanics as you probably won't have as nightmarishly high a modifier as your pilot check.
Assured Skill You get a reroll, but lose your competence bonus which amounts to a -5 on your skill in exchange for the reroll. Probably not worth it unless it's for a skill you don't use much (hence don't have skill focus for), but in that case why waste a talent for the skill? If it could be applied to any skill it'd be okay but the fact that it applies to only one skill makes it weak.
Soldier:
Piercing Attack This soldier talent lets you ignore 5 points of DR on each attack with a given weapon group, which is obviously going to be Heavy Weapons. Sub-par on the ground where DR is rare, awesome in space where everything has at least DR5 so it's basically free extra damage to everything.
Weapon Specialization Another good soldier talent, like piercing attack it's kind of meh for the ground trooper, +2 damage isn't that much. But a starship pilot using starship scale weapons gets a nicer bonus, since all bonus damage is increased by the ship weapon's multiplier that +2 becomes +4 on a light laser and +10 on a turbolaser, very nice. And the +2 on the ground won't hurt you any even if it's not amazing, and with the right exploits you can be using multiplied weapons on the ground too. An excellent choice if you're going soldier at all and can afford weapon focus.
Devastating Attack Less awesome. This one is more useful on the ground, since heavy weapons do massive damage you can readily turn into a Condition Track Killer by treating their damage threshold lower. However most starships have such stupidly high thresholds that even a 5 reduction probably won't let you hit them. Better for the ground trooper who's a sometimes gunner on a turbolaser, where the high damage might make a difference.
Scout Talents:
Deep Space Gambit I'm normally not a fan of “once per encounter” powers, so for me to award one coveted aqua status you know it has to be something special. Deep Space Gambit forces an enemy to reroll an attack, once. What catapults it to awesome status is how it frequently it comes up, it works against
any attack on you even if you're not in a vehicle, explicitly. If you're just a passenger and have nothing to do with the vehicle's operation (although why you'd be that yet also a pilot escapes me. . .) you can apply it so long as you're actually in the vehicle If you're just walking along in the forest and somebody snipes you, it applies. If you're asleep and an assassin tries to stab you in bed, it applies. If you're in a bunk when a Star Destroyer suddenly opens up on your transport, it applies. You can use it all the time. It's a great way to stop that nasty natural 20 from a turbolaser erasing your light fighter from existence, or to ruin the day of a sneak using overwhelming attack and counting on a lucky shot to obliterate you. Can and
will save your life and you can pull it out every single combat. If you're going scout it's a great idea even if you're not a pilot at all. Save it for that “oh crap” moment when you're about to die, and live.
Evasion Already well-known as being one of the top talents in the game, Evasion is great on the ground for ruining the day of anybody who thinks a pile of grenades and autofire will make up for pitiful aim. But in space? Nobody uses autofire there, you say. It can't attack an area so it's useless, you say. Actually there's a few area-attack weapons on the stellar scale, such as the Flak Pod (Rebellion 130) and most missiles. Even so that's situational, but as the top pilot you're likely to be piloting vehicles on the ground as well, and making your walker dodge explosions is not only awesome but reduces repair bills. Unless you expect never to fight on the ground at all, it's worth taking, although I'd reach for Deep Space Gambit first if you're taking only a few scout levels.
Vehicle Sneak Makes your ship seem smaller on sensors. Excellent for the discerning smuggler, who can take his colossal transport's -10 and suddenly turn it into a huge fighter's -2 to stealth checks. Only useful if you're already trained in stealth and sneakiness is expected to happen, but very good then, and this is Star Wars, sneaking past a Blockade is an iconic moment.
Hyperspace Savant You can use your pilot check in place of your use computer check to fly through hyperspace. Fairly useless, if you have a hyperdrive you probably have either an R2 unit to do the astrogating for you or a techie pal on a big ship. Further, saving skill slots isn't a big deal to a scout since they have lots of skills. You could daisy-chain this with Force Pilot to make a jedi who astrogates with the force, but overall I find it underwhelming, only take if you started out Jedi and are choked for skills.
Scoundrel Talents:
Fool's Luck Not bad, the competence bonus (errata'd from a luck bonus) to your skills doesn't stack with skill focus so fool's luck on pilot is useless to the dedicated pilot, and gold to the person who wears pilot as a second hat or the skill monkey without the feats to take skill focus.
Starship Raider Meh, it's only +1 to hit. But it applies on all ship weapons and your personal weapons during boarding actions, so you'll use it a lot. Probably not the greatest option but useful.
Hyperdriven Notice the funny wording on hyperdriven. It applies anytime you're on a starship. Not just the pilot, not the gunner, any time you're on board, which means it's also useful when you're in a duel against a pirate on the hull or fighting off Darth Vader's stormtrooper boarding party. Sadly it works only once a day which isn't that outstanding.
Spacehound This looks like a cool option until you remember that every single ship has artificial gravity and even random asteroids will probably have it. I've gone half a dozen campaigns and never seen Zero-G combat. The only time you should take this is if you're a dedicated techie, and your general plan is to always shut the gravity off, either on your own ship or your enemy's, in order to get an advantage. However since this plan will leave the rest of your party screwed since they won't have Spacehound, even then it's marginal.
Stellar Warrior First this needs the already-crummy Spacehound as a prereq, so it needs to be something awesome to compensate. And it's not awesome, it activates only when you roll a natural 20 which means it will only apply every few combats, and then you have to scurry to use it's bonus before you lose it. Avoid.
Ace Pilot Talents:
On all the other classes I've only touched on talents that were specifically aimed at pilots or had pilot-specific uses. Obviously all Ace Pilot talents qualify, so I'm taking them all in stride. In addition, since I'm doing them all, I'm taking them in order rather than putting what I find best first.
Elusive Dogfighter (Core 207)
Heavily penalize others in a dogfight. Since a penalty in a dogfight can be a death sentence, this is basically like an awesome grapple attack that paralyzes your enemy's ability to attack or escape.
Full Throttle (Core 207)
Decidedly Meh. Oh, it's good to not have the risk of damaging your ship when you increase speed. The problem is the DC is only 20, and by the time you're in position to actually take this talent, your skill modifier will probably be so high you can hit 20s on a natural 1 anyway.
Juke (Core 207)
I do not throw down red status lightly, I reserve it for the very worst (And
Militant Vegetarians, but that's a bit redundant). And this. . . is the very worst. Juke appears to be really good, after all who doesn't want more defense? Well first you have to take the inferior Vehicular Evasion to get it, bad. Then look at it's text, which says you get +5 to your defense when fighting defensively instead of +2. That's good, right? Look at the text of fight defensively on page 171: If you are trained in pilot, you get +5 instead of +2, no talent required. The only way you can ever benefit from Juke is if you aren't trained in pilot. . . oh look, you can't actually take Juke unless you're trained in Pilot, so there's no way to
ever benefit from Juke. Effectively this talent specifically does nothing at all, ever.
Keep It Together (Core 207)
I get the impression they didn't think too hard about this class's talents. Keep It Together avoids going down the condition track, yay! Except that starships almost never go down the condition track thanks to hideous bonuses to their Damage Thresholds, so boo.
Relentless Pursuit (Core 207)
Finally a nice one. Rerolls are excellent for anything and dogfights can keep your allies alive. A nice catch as long as you plan to be in a fighter, which you probably do.
Vehicular Evasion (Core 207)
Oh where to begin? First it's evasion, a top-notch talent, but it's evasion that only works in vehicles while normal evasion works in
and out of vehicles, so it's deeply inferior to a talent you can snag at level 1 with your scout class. The real kicker, though, is that there are relatively few area attacks on starship scale, and starship scale is your primary focus if you're a pilot. The only actual splash attacks come from expensive missiles since autofire can't do area attacks in space. So this will only activate under rarer circumstances. It's situational and not to be taken as one of your valuable prestige class talents, especially when a better version is available as a base class.
Dogfight Gunner (Core 207)
At a glance this is nice. No penalty to attack rolls for your gunners? Great! Except. . . you have to be an Ace Pilot to take this, and if you're the party's ace pilot you probably aren't the gunner, so it only comes up in very unusual circumstances.
Expert Gunner (Core 207)
+1 to hit is weak, and it opens up access to the even weaker Dogfight Gunner and System Hit. However there's some nicer options it opens up in other books.
Quick Trigger (Core 207)
Okay it's not bad, Attacks of Opportunity happen, and if you're not in a dogfighting platform getting to shoot the enemy as your AoO is good. But if you're an ace in a good fighter you probably want to dogfight in order to protect your mothership, so not outstanding.
System Hit (Core 207)
Oh goody, a talent that only activates when you take a starship down the condition track (See
Keep It Together). You might as well say "This talent can be used once every 1d10 games. . ."
Blind Spot (Starships 17)
Superb, so long as you keep making those opposed pilot checks you have an advantage all fight. It's not overwhelming since the bonus won't apply to all the other enemy ships, but particularly good when you have to cope with a nasty capship since a fighter can beat it's pilot check all day long.
Close Scrape (Starships 17)
You can turn a critical into a normal hit, that still hits you. Except that Vehicular Combat and Ackbar Slash do this better by cancelling the hit entirely, so why bother?
Improved Attack Run (Starships 17)
Unless asteroid fields play a major role in your battles, you can probably fly in a straight line every time. Very situational but useful when it comes up.
Vehicle Focus (Starships 17)
Very nice, +2 to hit and getting to take 10 to gun your engines basically amounts to free speed all the time, plus you can take 10 to activate maneuvers and always get good results.
Wingman (Starships 17)
What's great about Wingman is that it only takes a swift action, so you can spam it continuously. Two pilots using Wingman can each be in a different dogfight while still assisting each other and cutting the enemy to shreds. It's a key way to keep your party's colossal transport from being eaten alive by a light fighter. Even better? It's bonus is untyped so not only does it stack with anything, multiple Wingmen can theoretically stack with either other for hideous bonuses. Really one of the best options available.
Crippling Hit (Starships 17)
See: Every other stupid maneuver that only works when the enemy ship goes down the condition track.
Great Shot (Starships 17)
It is great indeed. Starship weapons have, to put it lightly, pitifully short ranges. It's possible to go from point blank to outside long range with a single move action in the faster fighters. Anything that extends your range is excellent.
Synchronized Fire (Starships 17)
I'd be all set to call this Aqua if it worked more than once per encounter. Even so it's surprisingly useful, note that the wording of the talent simply mentions firing a weapon, not a starship weapon, not even a vehicle weapon, so arguably you can pull it out any time you and an ally are in the same fight. Excellent for punching through heavy shields, for instance by coordinating with an ally who's shooting a turbolaser while shooting one yourself to stack up over a hundred damage on one shot, or by coordinating your heavy weapons fire to turn a droideka into instant slag right through it's shields.
Begin Attack Run (Starships 17)
+5 to attack instead of +2? Even if this was only for you, it'd be a decent option. The fact that you can share it with your entire squadron, and can switch targets at will, makes it superb. Obviously slightly situational in that you won't always have several allies to share it with, but I find that most of the time there's at least a few other ships on your side and giving them all +3 to hit is fine indeed.
Regroup (Starships 18)
And. . . not so fine. Ships don't go down the condition track readily, and pulling them back up is cheap and easy with a mechanics check, you don't really need to waste a valuable prestige class talent on it.
Squadron Maneuvers (Starships 18)
Oooh mama. Everybody in your squadron gets a free talent from your list. Sadly, you have to choose which talent and can't change it. The most obvious choice is wingman, as your skill at tactics and instructions let all those crappy pilots under you suddenly cover each other and dogfight the enemy into slag. There's quite a few other good options for this too, however.
Squadron Tactics (Starships 18)
Okay, it works for only one turn (per maneuver) so it's no Squadron Maneuvers. However you can share any maneuver you want, which usually means sharing shield hit, and half a dozen shield hits are the key to ripping through those pesky Star Destroy shields. Sadly you have to be pretty high level before you can get this due to it's heavy prereqs. Also note the stupid name scheme, Squadron Tactics is for maneuvers, Squadron Maneuvers is for Talents. Don't let it confuse you.
Concentrate All Fire (Rebellion 40)
+1 Die of damage to all allies. Nice for you, nicer for everybody when you spam it using Squadron Maneuvers.
Escort Pilot (Rebellion 40)
Because it wasn't hard enough for ships to go down the condition track. . .
Lose Pursuit (Rebellion 40)
Not too bad, another good way to keep your colossal transport from dying in a dogfight.
Run Interference (Rebellion 40)
This is excellent. You can use your Vehicular Dodge to keep some other poor schmuck alive. Even better, the wording shows that you use your own Pilot check, not your ally's, so that lumbering Dynamic with -8 to pilot suddenly dodges like your nimble huge fighter with pilot +15. Sadly it requires the inferior Escort Pilot.
could be better spent to making a terrifying Squadron Maneuver combo.
Wingman Retribution (Rebellion 40)
By itself, Wingman Retribution is not overwhelming since you attack at a significant penalty, however free attacks are good even with penalties. However it has absolutely terrifying implications when comboed with Squadron Maneuver. Since it works every round any ally takes damage, when shared with a dozen fighters your enemy will suddenly draw a massive murdercloud of incoming fire from every ship on your side every time they land a hit, turning a squad vs. squad battle into a curbstomp. Sadly, this will come into play only at the highest levels due to a combination of many prereqs, keeping it from blue status.
Roll Out (Unknown 29)
A nice way to deal with Dogfights and let your gunners chew the enemy up. Basically makes taking a colossal freighter a safe option, though you're at least level 10 before that happens, and can afford a frigate by then.
Fast Attack Specialist (Unknown 29)
Not worthwhile. The double and triple attack abilities are only so-so, and not much else makes a full attack worthwhile, plus it has a huge pile of prereqs that
Overcharged Shot (Unknown 29)
Gets you a little extra punch when you need it. While overcharged shot theoretically costs you by making your later shots weaker, you can easily overcome this by having more than one weapon system on your fighter and simply swapping off alternate rounds, allowing you to basically gain +1 die forever to all attacks.
Clip (Unleashed 24)
Hmm, reduces damage when you ram. Problem is that you're still taking damage, and Ramming isn't very reliable. Better to avoid it.
Master Defender (Unleashed 24)
This is what Juke should have been in the first place, it actually makes fighting defensively worthwhile. Really worthwhile. If there weren't so many other awesome talents that I might rate this Blue.
Shunt Damage (Unleashed 24)
Why would you give damage to your allies?!? Not only will shunting your damage to them piss them off, there's no reason to waste a talent on this when you can use Ackbar Slash to shunt the damage to an enemy instead. There's plenty of ways to dodge already, the one that hurts your friends is the worst possible choice. I guess if you're playing a Sith this would be in character. . .
Officer Talents:
Assault Tactics (Core 221)
Good for starships, since the multiplier effects transforms your 1d6 damage bonus into a lot more than usual.
Shift Defense I, II, III (Core 221)
There's no rule against using this to boost your starship's defenses but your GM is probably going to call you a cheater if you're reducing a fort defense you never use in space to make your frigate dodge better.
Legendary Commander (Starships 18)
Most Officer Talents are decent but not outstanding. Legendary Commander, however, is amazing. It's basically the entire armor talent tree for starships, letting you stack your level bonus and armor bonuses to reflex defense. Plus it boosts the skill level of all your generic crew by one step. Excellent.
More to come shortly. . .
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:22, Thu 13 Feb 2014.