There are a couple of talents that give a character two specific skills as career skills: Basic Combat Training, Insight, Tactical Combat Training, Vehicle Combat Training, and Well-Traveled.

Here's my suggestion: Would it be terribly unbalanced to mark those as purchased for free if the PC already has the two class skills in question on his list of career skills?

IMO: No, it wouldn't be unbalancing.

That's what we did too.

It's as though they effectively already have the Talent and as it's not a Ranked Talent, the rules for unRanked Talents should apply and it be counted as purchased.

Aye. I remember it was discussed a bit during the beta, I think I asked the devs but never got a response.

I think it'd be ok to considered those as non-ranked talents already taken yes.

I do remember some people taking the other position, but I cannot seem to recall their arguments...

Aye. I remember it was discussed a bit during the beta, I think I asked the devs but never got a response.

I think it'd be ok to considered those as non-ranked talents already taken yes.

I do remember some people taking the other position, but I cannot seem to recall their arguments...

The argument was probably the "getting to skip ahead" in the tree, particularly if the skills in question were already part of that character's career. It's not such a big deal with the 5 XP talents, but it's a bit more of an issue for the 10 XP talents. Also raises the issue of "do you refund the XP to those players that took the talent but then later selected a specialization that offered both those skills as bonus career skills?"

The only other talent that adds specific skills is Insight for the Exile and Emergent, but that one's set up as a dead end on Row 1 and isn't required to progress further into either specialization unlike the Recruit.

I would argue for the Talent already learned side. I wouldn't give them XP back for buying the talent and then getting a spec with the same skills. That will happen more times than not after going into any spec past the second. At the same time, if the talent does not grant a single thing new, then it should be considered already bought.

Realistically, it makes sense as someone with the right skills going through basic training is going to excel much faster than others.

I wouldn't say that it's already bought, but I would say it costs 0xp. That way, if it's not on the top row, you still have to buy down the tree in order to take it and the talents it connects to, but you don't waste xp on it.

I would be amazed if a player had a character with all those career skills (from Basic/Vehicle/Tactical Combat Training AND Well-Travelled). I mean...if you had like a Hired Gun with the Marauder and Scholar specializations, and then used Well-Rounded to pick up Ranged (Heavy) and Knowledge (Core Worlds)...but, really?

In almost any character's case, the tree is built in such a way that one could buy through it and bypass any talents he didn't need. So...I don't see much reason to allow skipping. Just have the character take the route that they benefit from, and then double make up and around the tree to grab the other talents you want.

Away,

I think part of the concern is not so much a character having all those skills (that would be pretty impressive) but certain characters having some of those skills.

As you said, a Hired Gun has both Brawl and Ranged (Light) as career skills already, and taking either Bodyguard or Mercenary Soldier adds Ranged (Heavy) to go along with Melee as another of their career skills. Thus, some folks feel that the Hired Gun PC should be able to skip over Basic Combat Training and Tactical Combat Training as the PC already has those four skills. A Diplomat has both Knowledge (Core Worlds) and Knowledge (Outer Rim) as career skills, so again some feel that they should be able to skip right over the Well-Traveled talent for the same reason (the talent doesn't provide any benefit and thus should not require an XP cost).

I don't have a particular opinion on the matter either way, though perhaps instead of allowing the PC to "skip over" those talents, instead house-rule them so that if you already have those skills as career skills when you take the talent, you gain a boost die to checks made with those skills to reflect the extra/focused training you received as part of the Recruit spec.

Of course you could work your way around the talent you don't need, but you'd need to go down to the third or fourth row in Recruit, across and then back up again. Seems a bit excessive.

I don't have a particular opinion on the matter either way, though perhaps instead of allowing the PC to "skip over" those talents, instead house-rule them so that if you already have those skills as career skills when you take the talent, you gain a boost die to checks made with those skills to reflect the extra/focused training you received as part of the Recruit spec.

Interesting...I think that a Boost die for two of those combat skills might be a little bit on the too-good side.

How about a Boost die for one of the skills (choose which one when you take the talent)? Perhaps add a condition, like "when fighting in hazardous terrain" or "when you have cover" or "when wielding two weapons." Just spit-balling there. Kinda like the Duelist Training and Multiple Opponents talents for lightsaber combat in Force & Destiny.

The Well-Traveled talent could apply a Boost Die to both skills, I wouldn't have a problem with that. Non-combat skills see a lot more benefits for Boost dice. Edit: what I mean to say is there are examples of non-combat skills getting +1 Boost dice at a rate of two skills per talent. And Knowledge skills are some that I feel would be more balanced to receive a boost die for multiple skills.

Of course you could work your way around the talent you don't need, but you'd need to go down to the third or fourth row in Recruit, across and then back up again. Seems a bit excessive.

Unless you're planning on never taking any of those lower talents, it's not excessive. It's just an alternate route.

I sometimes leave cheaper talent unpurchased because I want to focus on a particular path for my character, or it doesn't really suit my vision for what the character can do, so I'll bank that 5 or 10 XP for something more expensive/more appropriate down there.

Of course you could work your way around the talent you don't need, but you'd need to go down to the third or fourth row in Recruit, across and then back up again. Seems a bit excessive.

Unless you're planning on never taking any of those lower talents, it's not excessive. It's just an alternate route.

I am trying to think of a way to say that I emphatically disagree with the "logic" behind that statement without sounding antagonistic. I don't want to start a flame war with awayputurwpn because he has said a lot of things that made sense in many contexts/situations and in general I respect his opinion... but in this case I am not seeing any logic behind this particular statement.

At issue is that useless (to characters who are trained in both skills) talents are "blocking" easy access to useful talents. "Useless" means that the talents provide no benefit as opposed to a benefit that the character isn't particularly interested in. So the options are to either waste 5 xp (to pass through the useless talents), or delay the purchase of desired talents by somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 xp, and neither of those options seem "fair." There's a semi relevant adage that "justice delayed is justice denied."