Heroic Classes

## Choosing A Heroic Class

Five basic classes, known as heroic classes, are available in the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. Characters with levels in heroic classes are called heroic characters, or heroes. Unlike nonheroic supporting characters, heroic characters have many special abilities that make them extraordinary.

At 1st level, you must choose a heroic class for your character. The five heroic classes are:

**Jedi**: The Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. They learn to master the Force, and their trademark weapon is the lightsaber.

**Noble**: The noble is a shrewd bargainer and negotiator who inspires confidence and makes a great leader.

**Scoundrel**: The scoundrel is a tricky, skillful rogue who succeeds by stealth instead of brute force.

**Scout**: The scout is a cunning, skilled explorer trained to operate in the vast wilderness of space and backwater worlds.

**Soldier**: A warrior with exceptional combat capability and unequaled skill with weapons.

### **Class and Level Bonuses**

An attack roll is a combination of three numbers, each representing a different factor: a random factor (the number you roll on the d20), a number representing the character's innate abilities (the ability modifier), and a bonus representing the character's experience and training. This third factor depends on the character's class and level.

### **Base Attack Bonus**

Your character's base attack bonus applies to all attack rolls. Use the bonus that corresponds to the character's class level.

If a character has more than one class, add the base attack bonuses for each class together to determine the character's base attack bonus.

### **Damage Bonus**

Your character deals extra damage on melee and ranged attacks equal to one-half his or her character level, rounded down. A 1st-level character, therefore, has a damage bonus of +0.

For example, a 4th-level soldier armed with a heavy blaster deals 3d8+2 points of damage with the weapon. A 12th-level soldier armed with the exact same weapon deals 3d8+6 points of damage.

### **Defenses**

Your character has three defense scores.

**Reflex Defense**: 10 + your heroic level or armor bonus + Dexterity modifier + class bonus + natural armor bonus (if any) + size modifier

**Fortitude Defense:** 10 + your heroic level + Constitution modifier + class bonus + equipment bonus

**Will Defense**: 10 + your heroic level + Wisdom modifier + class bonus

### **Heroic Level**

Your heroic level is the sum of all levels you have in heroic classes (Jedi, noble, scoundrel, scout, soldier) and prestige classes. It does not include levels in the nonheroic character class or beast class. For example, if you were a scout 6/soldier 2, you would have a heroic level of 8, adding that number to all of your defense scores.

### **Class Bonuses to Defenses**

When you take your first level in a heroic class, you gain class bonuses on two or more defenses. Class bonuses do not stack; you only apply the best bonus from all your classes to each defense score. Continuing the previous example, if you were a scout 6/soldier 2, you would have a +2 class bonus to your Fortitude Defense (this is the better bonus, granted by being a soldier) and a +2 class bonus to your Reflex Defense (also the better bonus, granted by being a scout). If you later added a level of noble, you would also gain a +2 class bonus to your Will Defense.

## **Level-Dependent Benefits**

In addition to attack bonuses and saving throw bonuses, all characters gain other benefits from advancing in level. The table below summarizes these additional benefits.

**XP**: This column shows the experience point total needed to achieve a given character level. For multiclass levels.

**Feats**: This column
indicates the levels at which a character gains feats. These feats are in addition to any bonus feats granted in the class descriptions and the bonus feat granted to Humans at 1st level.

**Ability Increases**: This column indicates the levels at which a character gains ability score increases. Upon gaining 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level, a character increases two of his or her ability scores by 1 point each. The player chooses which two ability scores to improve. A player cannot apply both ability increases to a single ability score, and the ability improvements are permanent.

For example, a noble with a starting Dexterity of 13 and a starting Charisma of 15 might improve to Dex 14 and Cha 16 at 4th level. At 8th level, the same character might improve Charisma again (from 16 to 17) and increase any one of the other five abilities by 1 as well.

Ability score increases are retroactive. For example, if you increase your Intelligence score from 13 to 14, you immediately gain an additional trained skill chosen from your class skills and an additional language. Similarly, if a Jedi with two instances of the Force Training feat increased his Wisdom from 13 to 14, he would gain two Force powers (for a total of six).

Multiclass Characters: For multiclass characters, ability increases are gained according to overall character level, not class level. Thus, a 3rd-level noble/1st-level soldier is a 4th-level character overall and eligible for her first two ability score boosts.

## **The Multiclass Character**

As your character advances in level, he or she may add new classes. Adding a new class gives the character a broader range of abilities, but all advancement in the new class is at the expense of advancement in the character's other class or classes. A noble, for example might become a noble/soldier. Adding the soldier class would give her proficiency in more weapons, a better Fortitude Defense, and so on, but it would also mean that she doesn't gain new noble talents and thus is not as powerful a noble as she otherwise would have become.

### **Class and Level Features**

As a general rule, the abilities of a multiclass character are the sum of the abilities of each of the character’s classes.

#### **Level**

“Character level” is a character’s total number of levels. It derives from overall XP earned and is used to determine when feats and ability score boosts are gained, as per the table above: Experience and Level-Dependent Benefits. “Class level” is the character’s level in a particular class, as per the individual class tables. For the single-class hero, character level and class level are the same.

#### **Hit Points**

Each time you gain a new level, roll a hit point die (the size of the
die depends on the class in which the level is gained) and add the result to your character’s hit point total. Your character’s Constitution modifier applies to each hit point die roll.

For example, a 1st-level scout who becomes a 1st level scout/1st-level soldier gains a number of additional hit points equal to 1d0 + the character’s Constitution modifier. A few game sessions later, the character gains a second level in the scout class, becoming a 2nd-level scout/1st-level soldier, whereupon her hit points increase by 1d8 + the character’s Constitution modifier.

#### **Base Attack Bonus**

Add the base attack bonus of each class to get the character’s base attack bonus. For instance, a 6th-level noble/2nd-level soldier has a base attack bonus of +6 (+4 for noble, +2 for soldier).

#### **Defenses**

Each time a character gains a new level, his Reflex Defense, Fortitude Defense, and Will Defense need to be adjusted to account for the increase on character level.

A character who takes his first level of a new class also gains a class bonus to one or more of his defenses; however, this class bonus does not stack with other class bonuses.

#### **Skills**

When you select a new class, you do not gain any new trained skills. However, your list of class skills expands to include those of the new class. If you take the Skill Training feat, you may choose your new trained skill from the class skill list of any class in which you have levels.

For example, Arani is a multiclass noble/soldier who takes the Skill Training feat. Her new trained skill may be chosen from the noble’s list of class skills or the soldier’s list of class skills.

#### **Starting Feats**

When you select a new class, you do not gain all of its starting feats. Select one feat from the list of starting feats. For example, a 1st-leve noble decides to take a level of soldier and gains one feat of his choice from the soldier’s list of starting feats; he selects Weapon Proficiency (rifles).

#### **Talents**

If a character gains a talent as a consequence of gaining a level, he must select a talent associated with the class in which he gained the level. For example, Arani is a 2nd-level noble who decides to take a level
in the soldier class, which grants her a talent. She must select her new talent from the soldier talent tree (or from Force talent tress, if she has the Force
Sensitivity feat), since it was a soldier level that granted her the talent.

#### **Feats**

For multiclass characters, feats are received at 3rd level and every three character levels thereafter, regardless of individual class level.

A multiclass character that gains a class bonus feat must select it from the bonus feats available to that particular class. For example, Arani is a 2nd-level noble/1st-level soldier who decides to take a second level in the soldier class. Doing so grants her a bonus feat, which she must select from the soldier’s list of bonus feats.

#### **Ability Increases**

For multiclass characters, abilities are increased every four character levels, regardless of individual class level.

### **Adding a Second Class**

When a single-class character gains a level, he or she may choose to increase the level of his or her current class or pick up a new class at 1st level. The GM may restrict the choices available according to how he or she handles classes, skills, experience, and training. For instance, the character may need to find a teacher to instruct him in the ways of the new class. Additionally, the GM may require the player to declare what class his or her hero is “working on” before he or she makes the jump to the next level, so the character has time to practice new skills. In this way, the new class is the result of previous effort rather than a sudden development.

The character gains the base attack bonus, class bonuses to defense, and class skills, as well as hit
points of the appropriate die type and a talent associated with the new class.

Picking up a new class
is not exactly the same as starting a character in that class. Some of the benefits for a 1st-level hero represent the advantage of training while young and fresh, with lots of time to practice. When picking up a new class, a hero does not receive the following starting benefits given to characters that begin their careers in that class.

* Starting feats (select only one of the starting feats)
* Maximum, tripled hit points from the first die
* Starting credits

### **Advancing a Level**

Each time a multiclass character achieves a new level, he either
increases one of his current class levels by one or picks up a new class at 1st
level.

When a multiclass character increases one of his classes by one level, he gets all the standard benefits that characters get for achieving that level in that class: more hit
points, possible bounces on attack rolls, better defense scores, and one or more new class features (such as a talent or bonus feat). In addition, a multiclass character has the option to take any starting feat for that class as a bonus feat.

### **How Multiclassing Works**

Arani, a 4th-level noble, decides she wants to expand her repertoire by learning some soldering. When Arani reaches 10,000 XP, she becomes a 5th-level character. Instead of becoming a 5th-level noble, however, she becomes a 4th-level noble/1st-level
soldier. How exactly she picked up this new area of focus isn’t critical to the campaign, though the player and the GM are encouraged to create an in-game reason and opportunity for the hero to do so.

Now, instead of gaining the benefits of a new level of noble, she gains the benefits of becoming a 1st-level
soldier. She gains a 1st-level soldier’s +1 base attack bonus, a soldier’s +2 class bonus to Fortitude Defense, and a soldier talent. Because she gained a level, all of her defenses (Reflex, Fortitude, and Will) increase by 1.

The benefits described
above are added to the scores Arani already had as a noble. She doesn’t gain any of the benefits a 5th-level noble gains.

On achieving 15,000 XP, Arani becomes a 6th-level hero. She decides she’d like to continue along the soldier path, so she increases her soldier level instead of her noble level. Again she gains the soldier’s benefits for attaining a new level rather than the noble’s. At this point, Arani is a 4th-level noble/2nd-level soldier. Her combat skill is a little better than a 4th-level noble’s would be because she has learned something about fighting during her time as a soldier. Her base attack bonus is +5 (+3 from her noble class and +2 from her soldier class). Her Reflex, Fortitude, and Will Defenses each increase by 1.

At each new level, Arani decides whether to increase her noble level or her soldier level. Of course, if she wants to have even more diverse abilities, she could acquire a third class, such as scoundrel. At some point, she may also qualify for a prestige class. In general, a character can multiclass as many times as there are classes available.