ARF Trooper
TR 2Humanoid · Medium·Recommended levels: 2-5
Abilities
Saves
- DEX +5
- WIS +4
Skills
- Stealth +5
- Perception +4
- Survival +4
- Athletics +3
Languages
- Galactic Basic
Equipment
Traits
The ARF trooper has advantage on Perception checks that rely on sight and on Stealth checks. Its helmet macrobinoculars cut through smoke, glare, and low light.
Difficult terrain costs the trooper no extra movement, and it can move up to half its speed as a reaction when an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet, without provoking opportunity attacks. (The *Mobility* trait.)
On the first round of combat, the ARF trooper has advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't yet taken a turn.
Actions
The trooper throws one of its 2 frag grenades at a point within 30 feet. Each creature in a 15-foot radius makes a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw, taking 13 (3d8) slashing damage on a failure, or half on a success.
(Bonus Action) The ARF trooper designates one creature it can see within 120 feet. Until the start of its next turn, the first attack roll each allied clone makes against that target has advantage.
Lore
Advanced Recon Force troopers are the Grand Army's eyes. Lightly armored and BARC-speeder-mobile, they range far ahead of the main column — mapping terrain, screening flanks, shadowing enemy movements, and calling down the fire of heavier units. Where a line trooper is built to hold a position, an ARF trooper is built to find one, slip around it, and report back before anyone realizes he was ever there.
ARF troopers shed the heavy plastoid of the line clone for a stripped-down scout kit and a collapsible DC-15S carbine, trading protection for speed and silence. They are the clones most often seen operating in pairs or alone, deep in contested territory, where the difference between a clean extraction and a dead patrol is who saw whom first. On worlds like Kamino, Saleucami, and the forest moons of the Outer Rim, it was ARF troopers who walked point.
In Play
Use ARF troopers to set the table, not to win the fight outright. Have them scout, mark targets, throw a grenade to break up a formation, and harass from the edges while the heavier clones close. They never stand and trade — Skirmisher lets them shoot and slide out of reach, and First Contact rewards them for striking before the enemy is set. As allies they hand the party intel and the opening attack; as foes they make an ambush hurt before the real assault even arrives.
Adventure Hooks
- The Scout Who Saw Too Much — An ARF trooper went silent deep in contested territory after his last transmission mentioned 'something the war isn't supposed to know about.' The party is sent to recover him — or at least his helmet cam.
- Read the Ground — Before a major engagement the party can ride out with an ARF screen to scout the battlefield. Good recon (a skill challenge) earns the whole force advantage on the opening round; a botched one walks everyone into a kill zone.