This has just come up with my group and I wanted to see if I had this right:

When you buy a new specialisation, you gain the career skills listed for that specialisation as new career skills and can purchase them as such.

Does this include ALL career skills,mor just the specialisation bonus career skills?

I believe it is all of hyphen, but wanted to get clarification

Cheers

RD

Just the skills listed as bonus skills in the new specialization.

Is that specified anywhere in theh book or FAQ s?

It is a combination of reading the totality of all the rules, what sections they are written in, and how they are referred to in the context of where they are being presented. So no, there is no one place in the book that spells it out in one sentence.

Ok, thanks for the input, I'll take your word on it. I've read the advancement section a few times but must have missed it.

I'll take another look, cheers!

RD

The book does tell you that you only ever have one Career and it only refers to the selection of the skills from the Career skills at creation. That's probably about as clear as the book gets. I love the game, but there is plenty of verbiage that could use tightening for sure.

What threw me was that the text for taking specialisation just refers to career skills, and the specialisation trees list career skills and bonus career skills at the top of each tree.

So taking things literally, I assumed that career skills would include all listed on the given tree page, bonus skills and all.

I assumed that for each specialisation since the core career skills are duplicated, the bonus ones are merely additions to that specialisation, and the term 'career skills' included everything, not just the bonus ones.

The book really is not clear on this as my reading interpret it's differently to yourself. I will need to read things a few more times and see if things start to click.

Cheers

RD

This was a long thread before but basically if you have a rule lawyer you are trying to win over, point out that the section on taking a new spec on page 93 talks about getting the new "career skills" with the spec it is true, but it doesn't specifically state "bonus career skills" so by a strictly literal interpretation they would not be allowed to have the bonus career skills. Well most people would agree that is dumb and then they drop the issue.

I'm not trying to win anyone over, it just cropped up in discussion... My immediate interpretation was that they all were gained, while the guy who could be considered the groups 'rules lawyer' said it was only the bonus skills.

I was simply curious as to which would be the correct interpretation, I am perfectly happy to be proven wrong

The way I read the bit on page 93 simply states career skills for that specialisation, and took that to mean the career skills, plus the specialisation bonus career skills specific to that specialisation.... I have no idea if that was right, or if it gave character too much power to take skills....

I would be interested in seeing the old thread if I canal dig it up, but if I ruled that all skills were available, would this break the game?

Much appreciation for the advice

RD

I just assume that the devs didn't want players to be able to have all skills as career skills by purchasing a couple 3 specs, because if you were strategic you probably could do it in 3 specs.

That's what occurred to me.... Well thank you for the input, it has been very helpful!

Cheers

RD

I just assume that the devs didn't want players to be able to have all skills as career skills by purchasing a couple 3 specs, because if you were strategic you probably could do it in 3 specs.

Yeah, but you'd pay a lot of extra XP for those separate careers. So, given the fact that a lot of the career skills are also replicated as specialization skills, and after initial character creation you never get any more "free" skills once you purchase a new specialization or career, it seems to me that you would get access to both sets.

You'd still have to buy ranks in those skills per the appropriate career skill price, but at least they'd be available to you as career skills.

I submitted the rules question.

Hi 2P51,

You only ever get the bonus career skills from the specialization.

Sam

On Jun 17, 2014, 2P51 wrote:

Sam Stewart

Senior RPG Producer

Fantasy Flight Games

I just assume that the devs didn't want players to be able to have all skills as career skills by purchasing a couple 3 specs, because if you were strategic you probably could do it in 3 specs.

Now, I'm curious - I wonder what the minimum amount of specs you would have to buy to get all your skills covered as career skills. Three seems kind of low to me. Hmmm, something to number crunch after the Uruguay v England match. . . .

From the core book you must be a Colonist or Explorer for Lore. For various other skills only these specs have, you must be a Fringer, Scout, Mercenary Soldier, Scholar, and Thief.

So, from the CRB, my pick for the smallest group is: Colonist + 9 specs.

Colonist
Fringer
Scout
Mercenary Soldier
Scholar
Thief
Mechanic
Politico
Scoundrel
Marauder

Edited to show my work some.

In CRB, these are the only specs with these skills.

Fringer: Coordination
Scout: Athletics
Mercenary Soldier: Discipline
Scholar: Outer Rim
Thief: Vigilance

I hope this narrows down the work some for figuring out the shortest path with the splat books and AoR.

I would go ahead and include AoR myself, I don't think it need limit itself to just EoE. We should have it in hand within 3 weeks.

I just assume that the devs didn't want players to be able to have all skills as career skills by purchasing a couple 3 specs, because if you were strategic you probably could do it in 3 specs.

Now, I'm curious - I wonder what the minimum amount of specs you would have to buy to get all your skills covered as career skills. Three seems kind of low to me. Hmmm, something to number crunch after the Uruguay v England match. . . .

I wondered that myself as soon as I typed it. Probably some spreadsheet shaman could figure it out easy enough.

As part of Dave's crew.....and a couple other GMs...there has been abit of confusion on this.

I was initially told that you changed careers by paying the extra 10 XP above and beyond the 10 per specialization you do to change specialties..which in turn gave you nothing more than access to the career skills (all not just the specialty)..alleviating the 5 point penalty for non-career. While I thought this was fair....as Dave and the others were "disgussing" this last night I could see the other point.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to provide a definitive example of changing specializations...thus putting to rest the vagaries of the issue.

I have a reply from Sam Stewart on this.

2P51 is correct.

When you take a new Specialisation, you gain ONLY the Bonus Career Skills as new Career Skills from then on.

NOT all of the 'umbrella' career skills.

I thank 2P51 for his insight, I bow to his superior knowledge, and I thank him for his time and patience

You don't ever change careers, you only ever have one career, p. 53 EoE CRB, Step 4 and 5 section subsection What's the Difference? "...,Han Solo will always be a Smuggler."

You buy new specializations, in career it is 10 x the number of total specs you will have with that one. Out of career it is that +10 per.

When you include AoR, you include Knowledge: Galactic Civil War. Only three careers have access to this skill, while no specs do. So, you limit yourself to Commander, Soldier, or Spy. The next most restrictive skill is Lore, which is only found in the Scientist and Archaeologist specs.

There are 34 skills. If you assume perfect distribution you need a career for 8 skills and 6.5 specs to cover all skills. Let’s round up to 7 specs. If all are within career, that is a minimum of 270 xp. Unfortunately, there are only up to 6 specs in a career and there will be some overlap, so that xp cost goes up.

You can use the Well Rounded talent for two additional skills for a cost savings. Archaeologist has Well Rounded for 5 xp and for 30 xp each you can get it in Medic, Politico, and Scholar. (Total cost of all four Well Rounded is 95 xp) That would be a total of 15 trained skills plus 8 WR skills, for a total of 23 known and 11 unknown.

If I was limited to only those four specs and their careers, the Soldier would be the best choice. This would grant 6 more known skills for a total of 29 known and 5 unknown. Not bad for 120 xp. (0 + 30 + 40 + 50) The trick is getting the last 5 skills. Fortunately, we can pick specs that give us the most skills from a pool of 13 skills, 5 unknown + 8 Well Rounded. As additional specs are added into the mix, different careers can be chosen. At this time, I think the following career and 7 specs would be the cheapest but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a way to go a bit cheaper.

0 – Assassin
0 – Bounty Hunter
20 – Gadgeteer
30 – Survivalist
50 – Archaeologist
60 – Medic
70 – Politico
80 – Scholar
95 – Well Rounded x 4
405 xp total

When I was picking specs, Survivalist was the last one I chose and it only gave 1 needed skill to the list, Survival. So, for 10 more xp you can swap out Survivalist for one of any number of non-career specs that give either Survival or one of the 8 Well Rounded skills. (Astrogation, Computers, Cool, Coordination, Galactic Civil War, Gunnery, Leadership, and Negotiation.)

Edit: D'oh! I forgot about the Recruit spec. I'm sure I can bring this under 400 xp.

Recruit is a Universal spec tree with career skills and has a few talents to give additional skills. With this tree I’m able to cut the cost down to 290 xp for all skills known and do it in only 5 spec trees, under the 6.5 spec tree and just over the 270 xp minimum perfect assumption I provided above.

0 - Colonist
0 - Politico
20 - Recruit
30 - Scholar
50 - Medic
60 - Thief, Mechanic, Saboteur, or Demolitionist
90 - Well Rounded x 3
40 - Basic Combat Training, Vehicle Combat Training, Well Travelled, Tactical Combat Training
290 xp total

With the Colonist book coming out soon, I wouldn't be too surprised if this number could drop. With it written up as it is, Saboteur or Demolitionist as the last tree will have an extra Well Rounded skill slot for Lightsabers if/when it comes out in F&D.

Edit: Math is hard, total is 290 xp.

I just assume that the devs didn't want players to be able to have all skills as career skills by purchasing a couple 3 specs, because if you were strategic you probably could do it in 3 specs.

Now, I'm curious - I wonder what the minimum amount of specs you would have to buy to get all your skills covered as career skills. Three seems kind of low to me. Hmmm, something to number crunch after the Uruguay v England match. . . .

From the core book you must be a Colonist or Explorer for Lore. For various other skills only these specs have, you must be a Fringer, Scout, Mercenary Soldier, Scholar, and Thief.

So, from the CRB, my pick for the smallest group is: Colonist + 9 specs.

Colonist

Fringer

Scout

Mercenary Soldier

Scholar

Thief

Mechanic

Politico

Scoundrel

Marauder

Edited to show my work some.

In CRB, these are the only specs with these skills.

Fringer: Coordination

Scout: Athletics

Mercenary Soldier: Discipline

Scholar: Outer Rim

Thief: Vigilance

I hope this narrows down the work some for figuring out the shortest path with the splat books and AoR.

I actually didn't pose the proposition of 3 specs from the standpoint of following the rules correctly but from the perspective of if you received Career skills as well as Bonus Career Skills when you add an out of Career Specialization. I assumed it is much harder following the rules and that's why the rule in regards to out of Career specs is written the way it is.

Now - the 98 dollar question: with F&D (more or less) in hand, does your pathing and numbers change any? Can we get it cheaper?