JTAS #13 Article Alternative Skills Question

[Terry Mixon]

I've been skimming JTAS #13 since it arrived this morning (thanks for the quick delivery of the Kickstarter reward, Mongoose!) and was reading an article for alternative skills by Martin Dougherty. It has me scratching my head.

He said: The Traveller Core Rulebook contains some very broad skills, notably Science. In the rules-as-written, a Traveller with Science (physics) 4 is also quite a competent archaeologist, psionicist and linguist. These rules provide a more structured approach to such skills, along with some modifications to skills such as Profession. The standard rules can, of course, be used instead.

Then the alternative rules go on about how to narrow things down more to more specific skill subsets.

I said: Huh?

I went back and reread the section leading into skills and then she sciences in particular. Nowhere at all do I see any indication that one science bleeds over into another like that. If you have science (physics), that's what you have. No bleed over into archeology, linguistics, or psionisist. Where is his take coming from? Am I missing something?

 

[Geir]

The bleed gives you Science 0 in everything, but that's all (or a lot, depending upon your point of view).

 

[Micky]

I thought the Core rules were a bit light in their treatment of some of the skills... science being primary of them and the Companion rules did do a much better job with them IMO than the more simplistic Core rules. Breaking the larger Science skill into related subfields with which you focus on one and thus would start at a 0 or 1 level with a first 'science' skill in a specific scientific field thus getting the other related sciences skills at a 0 not a broad Science 0 with all the rest. You might be become a level 4 expert in Astronomy.. and with that comes at least a 0 level in Cosmology.. but not getting a 0 level in biology or all the rest of the unrelated physical sciences. unless you choose/receive a 2nd skill choice in a different scientific field focusing on a different branch of science.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The bleed gives you Science 0 in everything, but that's all (or a lot, depending upon your point of view).

Ah. I didn't look for that kind of thing under specialties. I suspect I'll end up not using that for sciences, professions, and other skills where the subspecialties are so unrelated. Thanks.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The bleed gives you Science 0 in everything, but that's all (or a lot, depending upon your point of view).

Doesn't the Traveller Companion already fix this issue?