Queston on Skill Specialties

[ericphillips]

It says in the book that when a skill goes to 1 you may take a specialty. Questions:

1. Do you have to specialize, or can you just raise the whole skill by 1. And if you can, what's so cool about a specialty?

2. Can you wait until all terms are done then assign specialties, or should you do them during the term when the skill increase is acquired?

3. What happens if you are rolling on the Rogue Specialist: Pirate table on page 28 and throw a 6, giving you Melee (Blade), but you don't have Melee 0. Do you get Melee 0? Does the specialty (Blade) only come into effect if the skill is 1 or greater.

4. How does the specialty work? Say you have Gun Combat (Slug Pistol) 3, do you get a +3 to shoot a slug pistol and +0 for any other type of gun?

Thanks in advance.

 

[locarno24]

1)

If a skill has specialities, it's generally too broad a subject to have a global skill of 1. As a result you can be globally competent, but only skilled in a named speciality.

The example given is engineer - you can be engineer/0, or you can be engineer (jump drives)/1, which includes engineer/0.

Or you can be engineer (jump drives)/1 and engineer (life support)/1 and engineer (giant mechanical aardvark)/1, but if you come across a system not on your list of specialities (let's say a radar), then you're back down to engineer/0 for using that.



2)
Generally you should assign the speciality during the term when you receive the skill, just as if you got to pick a skill. If you spent a term as an engineer in the imperial navy, for example, you should be able to say what you were doing at that point since you'd have to have been doing it as your principle day job to pick up a skill level of 1 or more. You're not supposed to be able to 'see the future' when doing character creation, so you can't reach back into the past and change your choices.



3)
As noted, Melee (Blade)/1 includes Melee/0 - being skilled with a blade means you must have a fair idea about such concepts as 'arm's reach', and you must be in a fair physical shape and used to sparring in general terms. You may not be good with any other melee weapon, but you'd at least have a fighting chance. Which is what Melee/0 represents.

4)

Exactly so. The more specialities you have under a given skill, therefore, the better.

A useful way to think of it is that each class of gun is actually a seperate skill - that gun combat (slug pistol), gun combat (assault rifle), gun combat (heavy machine gun) etc, etc, are different, unrelated skills, but that taking a skill level in ANY of them means you also get a minimum of skill level 0 with ALL of them as a free bonus.




Imagine - for a real world example - computers/0
You clearly have this skill (and more) as you're using an internet forum.

Most likely you would have computers (windows PC)/1 or more.

If I put a unix machine in front of you with some specialist software, I wouldn't have to explain how to use a keyboard or mouse, nor explain terms such as 'open' or 'save', but you'd have to feel your way slowly and carefully to actually do anything (i.e. skill level zero). That said, you'd understand what the manual was telling you, and could probably do anything a professional could do given enough time and no stress or distractions (i.e. tasks not requiring a skill check) - so you're clearly not unskilled, or you'd pretty much be reduced to hitting keys randomly and hoping.

 

[AndrewW]

It says in the book that when a skill goes to 1 you may take a specialty. Questions:

1. Do you have to specialize, or can you just raise the whole skill by 1. And if you can, what's so cool about a specialty?

You have to specialize.

2. Can you wait until all terms are done then assign specialties, or should you do them during the term when the skill increase is acquired?

You pick a specialty when you get the skill.

3. What happens if you are rolling on the Rogue Specialist: Pirate table on page 28 and throw a 6, giving you Melee (Blade), but you don't have Melee 0. Do you get Melee 0? Does the specialty (Blade) only come into effect if the skill is 1 or greater.

You get the skill at whatever level you roll, if it's a level 1 or higher in a cascade skill you specialize. You get a level of zero for the areas you don't specialize in once you have a level of 1 or greater in any specialty for the other specializations unless specified otherwise for that skill (Trade for example).

4. How does the specialty work? Say you have Gun Combat (Slug Pistol) 3, do you get a +3 to shoot a slug pistol and +0 for any other type of gun?

You get a level of zero in the other Gun Combat specialties.

Some skills have specialities - specialised forms of that skill. A character picks a speciality when he gains level 1 in a skill with specialities.