Secret Skill question

[KnightofNEE]

How does one determine the rating for skills that are on the regular non-secret list (e.g. Demolition)? Is it 1d20, the rating of the governing skill, or governing skill +4? The book says:

For Secret skills not on the regular non-secret list, roll 1d20; the result is the skill’s rating. For specialties from the regular non-secret list, like Demolition, determine their rating normally from the governing skill’s rating. If you already have that specialty or weakness, don’t change the existing rating.

I'd have no question except for that part about determining rating normally. But then again, on the pregenerated characters (in the mission section) one of them has Demolition as a secret skill and it looks like it was 1d20. So that adds to my confusion.

 

[Allen Varney]

I think the perhaps inappropriate use of "normally" is what's throwing you, Citizen Knight. The intent is that if the specialty exists on the normal non-Secret specialty list, you should determine its rating using the method for determining non-Secret specialty ratings. In other words, the character's Demolitions specialty rating should be Violence+4 -- or is it Hardware+4, I forget? -- regardless of whether Demolitions was taken as a regular non-Secret specialty or as a Secret skill.

 

[KnightofNEE]

So if a character with Violence 7 had Demolition as a secret skill it would be 11?

 

[Allen Varney]

That's correct. (Assuming -- I don't have the rulebook to hand -- assuming, I say, that Demolition is a Violence specialty. That certainly sounds like the place I'd put it...) The governing skill rating plus 4 is the specialty rating, regardless of whether the specialty is in the common list or is considered a Secret skill.