Hey guys,

I know that page 41 of the Only War Corebook says that if a character receives a specific Skill twice, he gains an extra Advance in that Skill, and starts the game Trained in that Skill. But what if a character gained the skill three or four times? Our group wants to make a Sappers unit. We selected Siege Regiment, Mining Homeworld (HotE), and then we found Demolitionists and Sappers from Shield of Humanity. Assuming we take one if not both of those options, we'd have the tech skill three or four times. Does that mean each guardsman would start with Tech-Use +20 or Tech-Use +30.

I'd say yeah, you would. There's no limit specified, and it does stack at least once.

I don't know if Only War limits this in any way, but in all other lines, I think that yeah, they should stack. If you start with Tech-Use three times, that's Tech-Use +20.

AdMech either start out magically loving you, or magically hating you, with that kind of "innate" Tech-Use.

AdMech either start out magically loving you, or magically hating you, with that kind of "innate" Tech-Use.

It's an oddity of the system since they cut Demolitions as a Skill and baked it into Tech-Use. Suddenly everyone's a mechanical and technical genius if they specialize in explosives.

Clearly Sappers and Demolitionists know how to rewire archeotech and build your vehicle up from scratch.

Pretty sure the rules say that if you get the same skill twice, you start with +10, and that's it. Nothing about getting +20 if you get it three times. Whether you choose to be liberal or restrictive in your interpretation of this rule, is up to you as a GM.

Pretty sure the rules say that if you get the same skill twice, you start with +10, and that's it. Nothing about getting +20 if you get it three times. Whether you choose to be liberal or restrictive in your interpretation of this rule, is up to you as a GM.

Well, given how it has worked in pretty much every other game, it should probably go to +20 just as a matter of course.

It doesn't do that in any other game either.

I would say that since screwing over a Player because they made a choice that netted them one skill three times (intentional or not) is bad taste I would suggest two options.

1. Let it stack. They paid for it so its not like their getting this totally free or anything (its not a rules exploit), three would be +20 and four times would be +30 (maxed out).

2. Let them either choose to increase one of their Homeworld/Officer/Doctrine/Specialization skill to +10, or let them be granted a 'Known' (Characteristic +0) skill of their choice.

It's kind of a rules exploit. In total, they get advances worth over a thousand xp (approaching 3000xp at worst) by taking a couple advances equal to ca 200xp.

I do agree that they should get *something*, though. I usually let them have their +20s and +30s, because I'm cool like that. That's not what the RAW says, though - the RAW says nothing.

It doesn't do that in any other game either.

I always thought in the other game lines you just got the xp cost of the stacked skill.

This was why starting skills were costed, so you could "sell" them for xp to customise your build and to ensure players didn't get more expensive high level abilites for free.

It doesn't do that in any other game either.

It did in Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deatwatch, afaik - I'm not so sure about Black Crusade, because I'm not even sure it's possible to gain several skills like that on creation.

I'm quite certain that's wrong. As far as I know, Dark Heresy doesn't bring it up at all, and Rogue Trader says it's +10 for two of the same and leaves it at that.

And Askil, I have no idea where you might have gotten that impression from.

I think something to the effect of my previous post was stated it in the DH1 rulebook as the reason why starting skills were costed on the rank 1 advance tables.

Not sure how it relate to post-career systems like BC and OW.

I might well be wrong, been a long time since I last glaced through RT and DW.

Starting skills are on the tables as a precaution, in case the designers later wanted to put in starting packages that change your starting skills & talents. That never happened, but I appreciate it anyway, since it gives a more complete picture of the character's progression in case you want to house rule in more stuff.

Of course, that's the only thing the rulebooks give you a complete picture of...

The problem as I see it with doing it like that, is that it gives a mistaken overview of how many advances are actually available to you as a character on Rank 1. This is likely what later lead to the fact that invariably, you run out of advances you can reasonably take (aside from Characteristics Advances) or want on Rank 1, as opposed to basically any Rank 1 Alternate Career Rank, which offers a plethora of possibilities to expand.

At the very least, they should've been marked in some fashion, to make it clear that it is actually already part of the starting Skills or Talents of the base career.

I'm not sure I understand your complaint. How would marking the redundant advances provide more advances?

Not that I'd want to pass up characteristics advances at Rank 1, but there's no accounting for taste.

I'm not sure I understand your complaint. How would marking the redundant advances provide more advances?

Not that I'd want to pass up characteristics advances at Rank 1, but there's no accounting for taste.