High Guard and Naval College

[Siskey]

So I just bought High Guard for myself (tis Christmas after all) and I'm a bit puzzled by how the Naval College is supposed to work.

First of all, is there a Social roll for getting admitted in the first place? The character creation example implies that there is, but the Admission tests for each course don't have Social mentioned at all.

Second, what is the sequence of events? Is the four years in Naval College concurrent with the first term as a Crewman, or before it? Do you get to pass automatically through to the career which you studied at Naval College, without the usual test?

We're planning to play an ex-Naval game in the New Year, so any clarification would be great. Cheers!

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Welcome Siskey!

Not convinced that the HG naval college RAW work well, naval college is a slightly higher risk, and is likely to offer fewer rewards, than just joining as a crewman and commissioning from there.

The best way to think about it is "admission" = "qualifying part 1", "success" = "qualifying part 2 and survival". As you lose event and benefit rolls, and a failure will ditch you into the "Drifter" career, for no significant advantage, I can't see why anyone would bother with naval college under those terms.

I assume that anyone who is commissioned spends a year undergoing important leadership training (learning how to speak proper, which way to pass the port at dinner, how to organise inter-starship zero G beach volley ball tournaments etc) as part of their 4 year term.

You may want to tweak the character generation order for 18 year old naval entrants, allowing them to roll for a commission after entry, but before survival rolls, on that term only, if you think that naval college should be an important part of their back stories.

Egil

 

[Siskey]

Yeah I suppose apart from getting the Service Skill from whatever course you took and the commission there isn't a benefit for a lot more rolling!

I was just confused by the example they gave which mentioned a Social roll, and the use of Entry/Admission as terms. Thanks for the help!

 

[77thPatron]

Yeah, you are not the only one. No one understands it primarily because of bad writing and editing. Tear out the page and make up your own rules. There are still no coherent errata for it, despite people like US (consumers), paying people like them (WRITERS) for a useful product. Anyway, cheers mate!

 

[locarno24]

Yeah I suppose apart from getting the Service Skill from whatever course you took and the commission there isn't a benefit for a lot more rolling!

The daft thing is, even the commission isn't especially good 'value'; you don't get it until the end of a full term. It's not a 'fast track' to rank; if you join as a crewman you can make a comissioning roll at the end of term 1 as well. The EDU 8+ roll for commissioning as a crewman is the same difficulty as the DEX, INT or EDU 8+ rolls for success in naval college.

A crewman makes three rolls - qualify, survive, commission.
A cadet makes two rolls - admission, success.

If they pass all their rolls, at the end of their first term, both have Crewman basic training and O1 rank.

The crewman has a Crewman service skill, a benefit roll and an event roll.
The cadet has a Support, Engineering, Gunnery, Flight or Pilot service skill but no benefit or event rolls.

Since events can be good or bad, we'll assume that is neutral and you're essentially trading your mustering-out benefit for a service skill roll from a career that isn't normally accessible to a first-termer.

However, you're less likely to pass the cadet success roll (8+) than the crewman survival roll (7+ at worst). However, however, you're more likely to pass the cadet success roll than the crewman survival roll AND the crewman commission roll (7+ followed by 8+).

I think the real annoyance is the fact that you end up in the drifter career if you flunk naval college, which then hurts your chance of joining even as a deck-scrubber (Not that that's hard if you're prepared to join a planetary navy)

 

[M0nk3y]

I'm still trying to decipher how people are even supposed to get INTO Naval College as it seems there's details of a roll missing.

It says to enter Naval College, the character must pass an "Entry" roll. Yet nothing in following pages ever refer to an "Entry" roll, they only have Admission, Success, and Honours.
On the same page it says that if the Cadet fails this "Entry" roll, then they get kicked out and have to become a drifter.
After the list of the specific colleges, it also says that any Cadet failing "Admission" (the first roll of each college which I would have guessed may have been the "Entry" roll) can just pick a new career and does not have to enter the draft.... ?

Firstly, I presume the last part is meant to be "does not become a drifter", as there was no mention of being forced into the draft before this point?
Secondly, the "Admission" roll can't be the same as the "Entry" roll it mentions at the start as they have different outcomes for failing them.

Where is this elusive first "Entry" roll detailed??

I realise that this whole part is just plain broken (like many areas) and will require house rulings to fix it, but I'd at least like to try and know the original intents of what I'm fixing before doing so.

 

[rust]

The character creation example on page 40 mentions
the entry roll as Soc 6+.

 

[M0nk3y]

Thanks, that helps for what to roll against. Example to the rescue again. :lol:

Although that does highlight more typographical errors. The example says he makes an entry roll of Soc 6+, which is not used for Admission on any of the specific colleges, so has a good chance of being the elusive "Entry" roll.
On the other hand, the example says he fails this roll, and yet he still went in as a Crewman for his first term, not as a drifter.
If it was a true "Entry" roll, then he should be spending his first term as a drifter. The only way he could still enlist is if it was an Admission roll, but again, none of the colleges use Soc as an Admission roll! :roll:


Despite this, I think I have enough to at least start patching up my own version.

I've seen others suggesting to make the Effect of certain rolls give them extra skills to make the Cadet route more appealing, but I've been playing with the idea of using the option to go for Naval College instead of doing the Education section of the Background skills at the start of character creation. If the players fails to get in, then they merely continue with the original Background skills section, instead of very harshly being forced into a drifter career.

This means Naval College would happen before their 1st term, and they would also get greater benefit from their 1st term as a crewman, instead of pitting the two options against each other which it seems to steer towards at the moment.
Using the rest of the creation rules the same as suggested, a graduating Cadet would not have the same basic Education as other characters, but instead a more specialised set of level 0 skills and the automatic entry into the Crewman Officer tree.
Although we'd have to assume they cannot branch off to another career right after Naval College before they do at least 1 term as a Crewman.

I've yet to try this out (although plan to very soon), and I can see this has the slight chance of making the player a little overpowered. Also, it means any adventure involving fresh faced Cadets would take place at age 18 without even 1 term done, but it gives an 18 year old Cadet some basic skills that would be of use, and just generally makes more sense to me if done this way.

Any input is appreciated.

 

[rust]

I do not quite understand how you intend to handle the
characters' age. If the Naval College takes place before
the first term, does that mean that you intend to send
the characters to Naval College at age 14 ?

 

[M0nk3y]

I do not quite understand how you intend to handle the
characters' age. If the Naval College takes place before
the first term, does that mean that you intend to send
the characters to Naval College at age 14 ?

As long as it is instead of giving them their basic "Education" level 0 skills which they get before their 1st term, then 14 or 16 could both be used.
I know I started working towards my GCSE's (Maths, English, Science, etc) at age 14. I would consider that I know these at 'level 0'. When did you start working towards your very 1st qualification?

I understand the Naval College in the book suggests it's 4 years long, but as far as I can see, that time length was probably only specified so it fits within a standard 'term'. As long a the character attends before their 1st term, it's entirely possible that they could attend as late as age 16 (no term limits specified before age 18).
Either way, 14 or 16 both seem feasible as a suitable age to be going to Naval College instead of doing their 'high-school' education.

 

[rust]

I think age 16 and two years at the Naval College should
work well.

 

[IanBruntlett]

I do not quite understand how you intend to handle the
characters' age. If the Naval College takes place before
the first term, does that mean that you intend to send
the characters to Naval College at age 14 ?

As a real world example - I went to boarding school when I was 10. I seem to remember the youngest pupils being about 7 years old.

 

[M0nk3y]

That's more like what I was aiming at Ian.
I remember many people here in the UK taking "12 plus" tests to get into more restrictive/specialised schools. Going to Naval College at age 16 would suggest something came before that, but no skills to reflect this time period. So going for Naval College (or School) at age 14 sounds perfect to me.

Regardless of the age, I was more worried about the balancing issues regarding giving someone a full set of specialised basic training skills instead of their rather generic Education ones.
Then on the other had, it does make sense to give someone level 0 skills in something they intend to specialise in, and they are still only at level 0, so not hugely overpowering them. Especially if they are only going to gain them at level 1 later in their career when they start rolling on skills tables anyway.

 

[rust]

Ah, I have found the explanation for my misunderstanding on Wikipedia:

The United States is almost unique in that the term "military academy" does not necessarily mean
an institution run by the armed forces to train its own military officers; it may also mean a middle
school, high school or tertiary-level college, whether public or private, which instructs its students
in military-style education, discipline and tradition.

So what you mean is a specialized school run by the Navy, not a scheme
to recruit child soldiers. :lol:

 

[M0nk3y]

Yes, for this purpose I'm treating Naval College as an actual college or 'academy'. Not a super-soldier creating government institution. :wink:
Although that gives me an idea.