Operative Exploits

Operatives their your first operative exploit at 2nd level, and an additional exploit every 2 levels thereafter. Operative exploits require you to have a minimum operative level, and they are organized accordingly. Some require you to meet additional prerequisites, such as having other exploits.

## 2nd Level

### Alien Archive

Your vast experience makes identifying new creatures easier for you. Double your operative’s edge bonus to your skill checks when identifying a creature and its abilities. If you successfully identify a creature, you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to your skill check when you make a trick attack against that creature.

### Armor Optimizer

You’ve learned to customize your armor. You can adjust armor (Core Rulebook 196) to fit you without needing to attempt an Engineering check. This also allows you to add one upgrade slot to the armor, though any upgrade that uses that slot functions only when you wear the armor. Such upgrades are useless to anyone else.

### Combat Trick

You gain a bonus combat feat. You must meet all of that feat’s prerequisites.

### Concealed Weaponry

You are adept at concealing your weapons and other items. Double your operative’s edge bonus to Sleight of Hand checks when attempting to hide a small object on your body. Additionally, you can draw a hidden weapon as quickly as a non-hidden weapon.

### Death Strike

As part of any attack you make, you can add the operative weapon special feature to your unarmed attacks. When you do this, it loses the archaic weapon special feature. When you do this, if you would normally add 1-1/2 times your character level to damage as a special form of specialization (such as from a racial trait such as a shirren's natural weapon), you instead add only your character level to damage. This is true regardless of how many abilities or effects you have modifying your specialization that apply to your unarmed attacks.

### Elite Saboteur

You can attempt an Engineering check to disable a device on a lock or trap in half the normal time. If this would reduce the duration to less than 1 round, you can disable the device as a standard action.

### Feign Death

Whenever you take damage, you can attempt to feign death as a reaction. You immediately fall prone and attempt a Deception check against each opponent that is aware of you. The DC for this check is equal to 10 + your opponent’s total Sense Motive skill bonus, or 15 + 1-1/2 × the opponent’s CR, whichever is greater. Any opponent that you succeed against believes that you are dead and acts accordingly unless it inspects your body as a standard action and succeeds at a Medicine, Perception, or Sense Motive check at the same DC to uncover your deception. Maintaining this ruse is a full action each turn.

### Field Treatment

You can take 1 minute to tend your wounds and spend 1 Resolve Point to recover a number of Hit Points equal to three times your operative level.

### Holographic Clone

You can create holographic duplicates or psychic projections of yourself that conceal your true location. Once per day as a standard action, you can create 1d4 images of yourself that last for 1 minute per operative level. This ability otherwise functions as mirror image. You can use this exploit an additional time per day at 6th level, and again at 10th level.

### Inoculation

You’ve trained to resist various chemical and biological weapons, toxins, and pathogens you come across in the course of your missions. You add your operative’s edge bonus to Fortitude saves against poison and disease.

### Jack of All Trades

You’ve learned how to handle any situation. You can use all skills untrained, and you double your operative’s edge bonus when using a skill in which you have no ranks.

### Kick It Up

As a move action, or at the beginning of any action you take that allows you to move (even if you do not choose to use that action to move), you may attempt to kick an unattended, unsecured object of no more than 2 bulk that is on the ground in your square or an adjacent square up into your hands. You must attempt a DC 15 Acrobatics check, and on a success you are holding the object in one or more of your free hands. If you hold it with enough hands to allow you to wield it, you can choose to be wielding it.

### Lightning Reload

You treat all small arms that do not have the automatic weapon special property as having the quick reload weapon special property.

### Nightvision

You can see in the dark as if you had low-light vision and darkvision with a range of 60 feet.

### Pistol Whip

You can use a small arm to make a melee attack. Treat this as an attack using Improved Unarmed Strike (whether or not you have that feat), but the attack is not archaic, deals lethal damage, and has the operative weapon special property. If you have an ability that gives you a special version of Weapon Specialization that allows you to add 1-1/2 × your level to natural or unarmed attacks as damage (such as vesk natural weapons), you add your level to pistol whip unarmed strikes; otherwise you add half your level as normal for an operative weapon. When you make an unarmed attack, you must decide before making the attack roll whether you are making a normal unarmed attack or using pistol whip to attack with a small arm.

### Quick Disguise

Once per day as a standard action, you can quickly change your appearance. This functions as disguise self and lasts for 1 minute per operative level. You can use this exploit an additional time per day at 6th level, and again at 10th level.

### Trap Spotter

You double your operative’s edge bonus to Perception checks to notice traps.

### Uncanny Mobility

When you make a trick attack, if you choose the target of your attack before you move, your movement doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity from that target. When you use your standard action to move, you can choose one creature; you don’t provoke attacks of opportunity from that creature for this movement.

### Uncanny Pilot

When you attack while you’re driving a vehicle, you halve the vehicle’s penalty to your attack roll (to a minimum of no penalty if the vehicle normally imposes a –1 penalty). When you’re in a chase, you gain a +2 bonus to skill checks you attempt when taking the evade or trick pilot actions.

### Without a Trace

When you attempt a skill check opposed by a foe’s Perception check, you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to your skill check’s result. In addition, the DC to follow your tracks with the Survival skill increases by 4.

## 6th Level

### Bleeding Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can afflict your target with an amount of bleed damage equal to your operative level.

### Certainty

You can spend 1 Resolve Point as a reaction to reroll one of your specialization’s associated skill checks (see page 243).

### Debilitating Sniper

You can use trick attack with sniper weapons. You do not add trick attack damage to your attack, but the target is still flatfooted, and you can use debilitating tricks.

### Disarming Attack

For your debilitating trick, you can attempt to disarm the target. Choose an item the target is holding that would be subject to a standard disarm combat maneuver. The target must succeed at a Reflex save or drop that item. If the target gains a bonus to its KAC against disarm combat maneuvers it adds this bonus to its saving throw, and if it is immune to the disarm combat maneuver it is immune to this operative exploit. Once you have used this ability to attempt to disarm a creature, that creature is immune to your disarming attack for 24 hours.

### Disrupting Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can attempt to hinder your opponent’s ability to cast spells and spell-like abilities. The target must succeed at a Will save or be unable to cast spells or spell-like abilities for 1 round. Once you’ve used this ability to attempt to hinder an opponent’s spellcasting, that creature is immune to your disrupting shot for 24 hours. You must have the deactivating shot and staggering shot exploits to choose this exploit.

### Enhanced Senses

You can sense your surroundings without needing to see them. You gain blindsense with a range of 60 feet. You must have darkvision and low-light vision, or the nightvision exploit, to learn this exploit.

### Fast Aim

As long as you are not flat-footed, off-kilter, or off-target, when attacking with a sniper rifle you use the range increment value listed with the sniper special property.

### Hampering Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can reduce your target’s speeds by half and prevent it from using the guarded step action until the beginning of your next turn.

### Improved Quick Movement

You can move even faster than other operatives. You gain double the benefits of your quick movement ability, up to a maximum additional increase of +20 feet. You must have quick movement to learn this exploit.

### Interfering Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can prevent your target from using reactions (see page 244) until the end of your next turn.

### Knee Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can attempt to knock the target prone. The target must succeed at a Reflex save or fall prone. If the target gains a bonus to its KAC against trip combat maneuvers, it adds this bonus to its saving throw, and if it is immune to the trip combat maneuver it is immune to this operative exploit. Once you’ve used this ability to attempt to knock a target prone, that creature is immune to your knee shot for 24 hours. This exploit counts as staggering shot for the purpose of meeting the prerequisites of other operative exploits.

### Mentalist's Bane

If you fail your Will saving throw against a mind-affecting effect with a duration of 1 round or more, you can attempt another saving throw against the effect 1 round later at the same DC. You get only one extra chance to save per effect.

If you succeed at a saving throw against a charm or compulsion effect, you can prevent the effect’s originator from knowing you succeeded. You gain basic knowledge of what the mental effect would have made you do or feel, and you can attempt a Deception check to pretend you are under that effect. If the mental effect would provide a link between you and the originator, you can choose to allow the link without the control.

### Operative's Pounce

As a standard action, you can make a charge without the normal penalty to attack rolls when attacking on a charge, provided that you use an operative melee weapon to make the attack at the end of the charge. If the attack hits, you can substitute a debilitating trick effect for the damage the attack would deal.

### Ricochet Shot

When you hit an enemy with a trick attack using a ranged weapon that targets KAC, you can forgo the effects of your debilitating trick to instead ricochet the projectile to a second target. Make a ranged attack at –6 against the second target and deal normal damage (without trick attack benefits) if the attack hits. You must have line of effect and line of sight both from you to the second target, and from the first target to the second target. When determining your attack penalties from range against the second target, count the full distance from you to the first target, and then the second target.

### Soft Movement

As a full action, you can move up to twice your speed, ignoring difficult terrain. When moving in this way, any liquid or solid surface will support you, regardless of your weight. You can move across water, lava, or even the thinnest tree branches, and environmental circumstances such as the slipperiness of the area you’re moving through or the current wind speed do not adjust the DCs of any Acrobatics or Athletics checks you attempt during this movement. While moving this way, you do not take damage from surfaces or hazards that react to being touched while moving in this way, such as from lava, and you don’t trigger any traps that use a location-based trigger. This ability doesn’t allow you to move across gases or vacuums, nor does it allow you to move across walls or vertical surfaces (though you can do so if you have an ability that allows you to). At the end of your turn, this ability ends, and you are subject to any consequence of your location.

### Speed Hacker

You can disable mechanical devices with Engineering and computer systems with Computers in half the usual time. In the rare cases when disabling a system or device would normally be a full action, you can do it as a standard action, and if it would normally be a standard action, you can do it as a move action.

### Staggering Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can attempt to stagger your target. The target must succeed at a Fortitude save or be staggered until the beginning of your next turn. Once you’ve used this ability to attempt to stagger a creature, that creature is immune to your staggering shot for 24 hours.

### Stalwart

If you succeed at a Fortitude save against an effect that normally requires multiples successful saves to cure (such as a disease or poison), that effect immediately ends and is cured with a single successful save.

### Sure-Footed

You move at your full speed when moving over difficult terrain, and without penalty when using Acrobatics or Stealth at your full speed.

### Uncanny Shooter

Your ranged attacks with small arms do not provoke attacks of opportunity.

## 10th Level

### Blinding Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can attempt to temporarily blind a target. The target must succeed at a Fortitude save or gain the blinded condition for 1 round. Once you’ve used this ability to attempt to temporarily blind a creature, that creature is immune to your blinding shot for 24 hours. You must have the bleeding shot exploit to learn this exploit.

### Cloaking Field

You can bend light around yourself and muffle any minor sounds you make, allowing you to nearly vanish when not moving. Even when you move, you appear only as an outline with blurry features. This cloaking field doesn’t make you invisible, but it does make it easier to sneak around. Activating the cloaking field is a move action. While the cloaking field is active, you can use Stealth to hide, even while being directly observed and with no place to hide. Attacking doesn’t end the cloaking field, but it does end that particular attempt to hide. If you remain perfectly still for at least 1 round, you gain a +10 bonus to Stealth checks (which doesn’t stack with invisibility) until you move.

Your cloaking field lasts for up to 10 rounds before it becomes inactive. While inactive, the cloaking field recharges automatically at the rate of 1 round of cloaking per minute.

### Deactivating Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can attempt to temporarily suppress one technological item or deactivate one weapon, piece of equipment, or armor upgrade worn or carried by the target. Roll 1d20 + your operative level; the DC is equal to 10 + the item level. If you succeed, you deactivate the device until the beginning of your next turn. The device’s owner can spend a move action and attempt an Engineering check against your operative exploit DC to try to reactivate the device.

You can instead use this debilitating trick to temporarily deactivate a construct that has the technological subtype (such as a robot). You don’t need to attempt a check, but the creature can attempt a Fortitude save to negate the debilitating effect. If it fails, it’s stunned until the beginning of your next turn. Once you’ve used this ability to attempt to deactivate a construct, that creature is immune to your deactivating shot for 24 hours.

### Elusive Hacker

Your hacking skills make your code incredibly difficult for countermeasures to pin down. Whenever you would trigger a system’s countermeasure while hacking the system, there is a 50% chance that you manage to elude the countermeasure and it doesn’t trigger. You still haven’t disarmed the countermeasure, and it might trigger in the future.

### Ever Vigilant

You’ve been on enough solo missions to know that you can’t let your guard down, even while sleeping. You take no penalties to Perception checks for being asleep, though you still can’t succeed at purely visual Perception checks while asleep. You can always act on the surprise round, though if you choose to do so when you would otherwise be surprised, you use your initiative result or the initiative result of the first creature that would have surprised you – 1, whichever is lower.

### Extended Debilitation

When you hit an enemy with a trick attack, you can forgo your trick attack damage to increase the duration of the debilitating trick effect by 1 round. If you have the double debilitation ability, the duration of both debilitating tricks increases. Debilitating tricks with no duration (such as bleeding shot or knee shot) are unaffected.

### Glimpse the Truth

By picking up on subtle clues and hidden traces in your immediate surroundings, you can see things as they really are. As a full action, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to gain the effects of true seeing for 1 round with a range of 60 feet.

### Holographic Distraction

As a standard action, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to create a single holographic duplicate or psychic projection of yourself that moves away from you for 1 round per operative level. The double climbs walls, jumps across pits, or simply passes through obstacles, moving at twice your speed in one direction indicated by you when the ability is activated. Its course cannot be changed. Those who interact with the double can attempt a Will save to recognize that it is not real. You must have the holographic clone exploit to learn this exploit.

### Improved Evasion

When you fail a Reflex save against an effect that has a partial effect on a successful save, you take the partial effect instead of the full effect. You must have evasion to learn this exploit.

### Improved Uncanny Mobility

When you use the trick attack action or take a standard action to move up to your speed, your movement doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. You still provoke attacks of opportunity normally when making ranged attacks. You must have the uncanny mobility exploit to learn this exploit.

### Optical Optimization

If you succeed by 10 or more at the skill check to deal additional damage on a trick attack, you ignore cover or concealment (but not total cover or total concealment) for that attack.

### Stunning Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can try to stun your target. The target must succeed at a Fortitude save or be stunned until the start of your next turn. Once you’ve used this ability to try to stun a creature, it’s immune to your stunning shot for 24 hours. You must have the staggering shot exploit to learn this exploit.

### Utility Belt

You can spend UBPs to store supplies in your utility belt, effectively depositing UPBs for later use. The maximum amount is equal to 1,000 per operative level you have (2,000 per level at 13th level, and 5,000 per level at 17th level). As a move action, you can produce any item with light or negligible bulk from your utility belt that does not have a price that exceeds the amount of UPBs currently deposited in the belt and that has an item level no greater than your operative level –2. This reduces the number of UPBs stored in the belt by a value equal to the item’s price. Once you have spent the UPBs deposited in the belt, you must spend 1d4 hours buying supplies in a typical settlement before you can use the utility belt again.

### Versatile Movement

You gain a climb speed and a swim speed equal to your land speed. This speed is not increased by the quick movement class feature or improved quick movement exploit.

## 14th Level

### Audacity

You can take an unexpected or socially unacceptable action with such total confidence and lack of doubt that the target can’t immediately react to it. You can make an Intimidate check to demoralize a foe, but rather than cause them to be shaken on a successful check, you cause them to be dazed for 1 round, and staggered for 1 additional round for every 5 by which your result exceeds the DC. Once you have used this ability against a specific target, you cannot target them with it again for 24 hours.

### Dual Specialization

Select an operative specialization other than your own. Once this choice has been made, it cannot be changed. You gain the 11th level ability granted by the specialization. You are not considered to have the second specialization you selected for purpose of any prerequisite.

You must have Skill Focus in the associated skills of the selected specialization, and must have taken its specialization exploit as one of your normal operative exploits.

### Efficient Cloaking Field

Your cloaking field lasts for up to 100 rounds (10 minutes), and it recharges at the rate of 2 rounds of cloaking per minute while inactive. You can spend 1 Resolve Point as a move action to recharge 20 rounds immediately, and you can do this even while the cloaking field is active. You must have the cloaking field exploit to learn this exploit.

### Knockout Shot

For your debilitating trick, you can attempt to knock the target out in one blow. The target must succeed at a Fortitude save or fall unconscious for 1 minute. Once you’ve used this ability to attempt to knock a creature out, that creature is immune to your knockout shot for 24 hours. You must have the staggering shot and stunning shot exploits to learn this exploit.

### Multiattack Mastery

When you use triple attack or quad attack to attack the same target with all of your attacks, after your full attack is complete, if at least two of your attacks hit, you can apply a debilitating trick to the target.

### Surveillance Wraith

You are invisible to technological surveillance systems.

### Uncanny Senses

Your enhanced senses grow even more discerning. Your blindsense becomes blindsight with a range of 60 feet. If you have darkvision, its range increases by 30 feet. You must have the enhanced senses exploit to learn this exploit.