I have a few character questions which I cannot find answers for:

1. Can my character switch careers? I don't believe you can, but I just wanted to confirm this.

2. Is there any cost to start a new specialization?

3. If I do start a new specialization, my understanding is that I can only have 1 specialization at a time, so any talents I want to buy have to be from my most current specialization. Is this correct?

4. Can I learn a specialization that is outside of my career (i.e. a technician who want's to undertake the explorer's, fringer specialization). If so, is there any extra cost to do this?

Thank you.

1. If your GM lets you otherwise your career is what you pick at creation.

2. Cost is 10 xp per the total number of specializations you will have with the purchase if it is in your career field, so being a Scoundrel and then picking up Thief as your 2nd spec would be 2 specs total so 20xp. It's that +10 outside of your career. Universal specs are treated as career specs for cost.

3. No, you can have as many specs as you can afford and but talents from each as you go.

4. Yes, as mentioned above it is +10xp on top of cost for specs purchased outside career paths.

1. Nope, you can't switch careers. Currently this only affects what signature abilities you can get (from the career sourcebooks).

2. There is a cost. It's detailed on page 93, under the heading "Acquiring New Specializations."

3. That is not correct (thankfully). You can get as many specializations as you can afford, and you get access to the career skills and talents from all of them.

4. See page 93 again.

1) By the rules, once you select a career then your character is stuck with it. However, your GM might allow you to rebuild your character using a different career if you really feel that your initial choice simply isn't working out.

2) Yes, as detailed on Page 93 of the core rulebook, namely being 10 x number of existing specializations you have, with an extra 10 point cost if the specialization isn't attached to your career (universal specializations are exempt from this extra 10pt cost).

3) Incorrect. Once you acquire a specialization, it's yours to keep. Back in the EotE Beta there was a rule that a PC could only have three specializations at most, but that got dropped pretty early. Now, you can have as many specializations as you can purchase, and you get to keep any talents you've purchased.

4) Yes, you can take any specialization you want, so long as you have the XP to pay for it. Your GM might require to explain how your character picked up the basic know-how for that specialization, particularly for odd cases like a Bounty Hunter/Assassin suddenly grabbing the Slicer specialization, or a Colonist/Doctor grabbing the Fringer specialization, but going purely by the rules there's no requirement other than paying the XP cost as noted above. The in-game justification may be especially relevant if you want to grab the Force Exile universal specialization, particularly if nothing about your character's background ever suggested they were Force-sensitive.

You can get as many specializations as you can afford, and you get access to the career skills and talents from all of them.

No, you get access to the specialization talents, not the career talents.

If you're an Explorer, say, and you buy the Colonist/Doctor specialization, you then have access to the Doctor skills, but not the Colonist career ones.

Thanks a lot everyone. I now have complete comprehension

Thanks a lot everyone. I now have complete comprehension

And complete comprehension is half the battle!

No, you get access to the specialization talents, not the career talents.

Whoops! Thanks for clarifying. I muddled that up. I meant to say that the specialization's associated skills become career skills. Or something.

(Man, I missed my chance to do a 4 point bullet list. Maybe I'll just add a small useful tidbit when dealing with multiple spec trees. )

Also a caveat, if you're running two specialties that have overlapping talents that aren't ranked, you can skip over that node on one of the talent trees if you've bought it in the other.

For example, the Knockdown talent for Fringer and Marauder. If you buy the one that costs 10 XP in the Marauder tree, you can skip the 20 XP one in the Fringer tree.
Like wise, if you bought the 20 XP one for Fringer FIRST, you could skip over the 10 XP in Marauder. (You can now see how optimization of your talent buying route matters.)

(Also note that ranked talents do not share this caveat, and are impossible to "skip". To be fair, though, would you WANT to skip over things that gave you more boost dice, or hard points or the like?)

(...basically what I just said was "read page 128.")