Starship Ace Class

The starship ace is to starship combat what the elite trooper is to hand-to-hand fighting. Her arms and armor are the weapons and shields of a sleek starship soaring through space or shrieking through the atmosphere. A veteran of countless engagements, the starship ace has proven her skill again and again by virtue of facing the enemy and surviving – and making sure the enemy did not. She has several kills to her credit, some of which might be studied and discussed in training academies for their ingenuity and effectiveness.

For her part, the starship ace only feels truly alive in the cockpit, where she can pit herself against her peers in a life-or-death contest to see who is the better pilot. For some, the contest is enough, and they don’t care whether they win or simply get away with their lives. For others, the important thing is the kill. The adrenaline surge they feel when finishing off an enemy brings them back again and again. The best starship aces learn to stop enemies without destroying them, but those aces are rare, and their exploits are legendary.

The starship ace is broken out into two subtypes: the starfighter ace and the space transport ace.

A starfighter ace usually sees action as part of a squadron. If she doesn’t lead the squadron, it’s only because the rest of the pilots are aces themselves. The squadron is often assigned to protect a capital ship – preventing the enemy’s fighter squadron from overwhelming the larger ship’s defenses – but many squadrons are regularly assigned the dangerous “honor” of trying the same tactic on the enemy’s capital ships. In a few notable cases – the Rebel Alliance’s famous Rogue Squadron, for example – the starfighter aces take on a myriad of targets, including groundside defenses, heavily defended cargo transports, battleships, and even the occasional enemy ace.

The space transport ace prefers to fly alone, fighting the good fight on her own terms. She doesn’t need the comfort that wingmen and escorts provide, instead relying on her uncanny instincts, devious maneuvers, and sheer firepower to run blockades and blast pirate ships to space dust.

The space transport ace takes great pleasure in customizing her ship and looks forward to spending her hard-earned credits on upgrades and weapon modifications.

Requirements
To qualify to become a starship ace (whether a starfighter ace or a space transport ace), a character must fulfill the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +6
Skills: Pilot 9 ranks
Feats: Starship Dodge (Starfighter or Space Transport), Starship Operation (Starfighter or Space Transport)

Game Rule Information
Vitality: Starship Aces gain 1d8 vitality points per level. The character’s Constitution modifier applies.

Class Skills
The starship ace’s class skills, and the key ability for each skill, are as follows.
Astrogate (Int), Computer Use (Int), Knowledge* (Int), Pilot (Dex), Repair (Int), Spot (Wis)
*This skill actually encompasses a number of unrelated skills. Each time this skill is learned, a specific category must also be chosen. Examples include Craft (Droids), Knowledge (Jedi Lore), and Profession (Droid Programmer).
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier

Class Features
The following are features of the starship ace prestige class.

Starting Feat
Starship aces gain the following feat.
Weapon Group Proficiency (Blaster Pistols)

Starship Defense
At 1^st level, the starship ace can add her Defense bonus derived from her starship ace levels to the Defense of any starfighter (for starfighter ace) or space transport (for space transport ace) she’s piloting.

Familiarity
The starship ace gains a competence bonus on Pilot and Repair checks when used on a starship she designates as familiar. The same bonus is applied to the starship ace’s attack roll whenever firing the starship’s weapons. This bonus is +1 at 2^nd level and increases by 1 every two levels thereafter (4^th, 6^th, 8^th, and 10^th).

To designate a starship as familiar, the starship ace must have operated it for at least three months. A starship ace can only be familiar with one starship at a time.

This ability does not stack with the Jedi Ace’s Familiarity Ability.

Starship Evasion
At 5^th level, the starship ace can make a Pilot check to lessen the damage dealt by a successful hit against a starfighter (for starfighter ace) or space transport (for space transport ace) she is piloting. If the Pilot check exceeds the attack roll, the damage dealt to the pilot’s ship is halved (round fractions down, minimum of 1 point of damage). The starship ace can make an evasion check once per round.

Improved Starship Evasion
At 9^th level, the starship ace’s starship evasion improves. A successful Pilot check negates all damage suffered by the attack.

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Defense Bonus	Reputation Bonus
1	+0	+1	+2	+1	Starship Defense	+1	+0
2	+1	+2	+3	+2	Familiarity +1	+2	+1
3	+2	+2	+3	+2		+2	+1
4	+3	+2	+4	+2	Familiarity +2	+3	+1
5	+3	+3	+4	+3	Starship Evasion	+3	+2
6	+4	+3	+5	+3	Familiarity +3	+4	+2
7	+5	+4	+5	+4		+4	+2
8	+6	+4	+6	+4	Familiarity +4	+5	+3
9	+6	+4	+6	+4	Improved Starship Evasion	+5	+3
10	+7	+5	+7	+5	Familiarity +5	+6	+3