Hi I was explaining universal specs to a player and I thought of a question that I didn't know the answer to.

So. ..

Could someone take say spy as their career and recruit as their starting (i.e. free) specialization?

Or

Could someone take ace as their career and force sensitive emergent as their first spec?

Universal specs count as in career specs for all careers and the book presents choosing a career and starting spec as two separate steps.

That makes so much narative sense for so many builds/character types. I mean think about starting as a soldier:recruit

..........

O.o

I..... I don't know......

No, the rules do not allow it. For a specialization like Recruit it makes perfect sense to take it first, but that's not how the rules are written.

When it comes to universal specializations, it's called out specifically in the rules that they are NOT career specializations. So even though they cost the same, they don't count as choices for your first (free) specialization.

Edit: however, Recruit makes an excellent second specialization for any Soldier.

Universal Specs are basically specializations you do not pay the "out of career" penalty for when buying them.

They're not an option for your starting spec.

Correct me here but those Universal Specialties have no skillset to select from that's why they're at a reduced cost it sounds more like an attempt to add another free way of starting off force sensitive than gaining access to the AoR Recruit talent tree.

Just saying there's an ulterior motive here, has this person explained why they're willing to lose that 2 free skills ranks?

Correct me here but those Universal Specialties have no skillset to select from that's why they're at a reduced cost it sounds more like an attempt to add another free way of starting off force sensitive than gaining access to the AoR Recruit talent tree.

Force Sensitive ones don't have any, but Recruit has the 4 Bonus Career Skills. So if you took the rest of rules RAW, then you wouldn't get free skill ranks since you have no original career skills to choose from, so you're giving up 4 skill ranks (for EotE and AoR) - which adds up to a minimum of 20 experience points that you immediately wouldn't benefit from not to mention long term potential XP loss from having so few skill ranks without needing to buy talents.

I'm pretty sure that the intent of the OP was to select a career and take your 4 (6 for droid) skill picks from it and then take Recruit instead of the free in-career specialization and take your 2 (3 for droid) skill picks from it.

Its possible they may have intended Recruit to be a Career Spec for all the AoR careers but they just wrote it in the same way as Force Sensitive trees.

As written, I agree with those who say no. But, this is something I could see a GM houserule in. The only big question would be if the GM would allow one of those extra bonus talent abilities (I forget what they are called, but that talent 30 xp talent attachment Unmatched Mobility for Explorers) to be attached to the universal tree.

If I was the GM, I'd think about allowing Recruit to be taken as the first and only spec, since it does give career skills. I'd have to think about allowing the 30 xp attachment talent to be attached to the Universal Recruit spec. Allowing this might depend on a case by case basis. In general, I don't see anything overly broken with allowing Recruit to be taken as the first and only spec.

I wouldn't allow either of the force trees to be taken as the base and only spec. If a player wants the Force they gotta spend the XP and earn it. In Role play terms, the character needs to have life skills (career and first spec) which knowing the Force (extra Force tree) will enhance. EotE and AoR are not FnD, so you gotta earn your force powers.

I likewise say no, since universal specs aren't career specs. You start with a career and one spec from it, not a career and a spec. Universal specs are meant to shore up advancement, not replace character creation, and don't have the same kinds of abilities and options that career specs have available to them. Thus, on their own, I suspect that they wouldn't really make a very playable character.

I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't think about it. I wouldn't houserule it. I wouldn't try it. The rules are fine the way they are, and changing this adds nothing to the game from frustration and disappointment.

I wouldn't think about it.

But you'll comment on it without thinking about it?

As written, I agree with those who say no. But, this is something I could see a GM houserule in. The only big question would be if the GM would allow one of those extra bonus talent abilities (I forget what they are called, but that talent 30 xp talent attachment Unmatched Mobility for Explorers) to be attached to the universal tree.

If I was the GM, I'd think about allowing Recruit to be taken as the first and only spec, since it does give career skills. I'd have to think about allowing the 30 xp attachment talent to be attached to the Universal Recruit spec. Allowing this might depend on a case by case basis. In general, I don't see anything overly broken with allowing Recruit to be taken as the first and only spec.

I wouldn't allow either of the force trees to be taken as the base and only spec. If a player wants the Force they gotta spend the XP and earn it. In Role play terms, the character needs to have life skills (career and first spec) which knowing the Force (extra Force tree) will enhance. EotE and AoR are not FnD, so you gotta earn your force powers.

I might consider allowing a PC to take any universal spec as their free stating specialization, provided:

1) they have a clear, in-character reason as to why they are taking this specialization. This reason must be acceptable to me

2) their second specialization must be from their chosen career.

This would allow a starting character in EotE of AoR to be Force-sensitive without the "20 XP tax." Basically letting them get there a session faster than normal. But it would preclude power-gaming by going directly from Force Sensitive Exile to Force Sensitive Emergent, requiring the young Force User or the fresh Recruit to flesh out their career before expanding their horizons.

I would certainly allow Recruit to be taken as a first spec with the requirement that the next spec taken must be from the character's career. Because of the lack of skills, I'm more hesitant to allow the same for F-SEm and F-SEx.

Balance-wise, I don't think there's anything terrible about starting with a universal spec. With the Force Sensitive specs, instead of 2 free skills, you get a Force Rating. That's about on par with FaD characters (who start with 1 less skill rank and 2 less career skills on their list—retail value 10 XP).

I might consider allowing a PC to take any universal spec as their free stating specialization, provided:

1) they have a clear, in-character reason as to why they are taking this specialization. This reason must be acceptable to me

2) their second specialization must be from their chosen career.

This would allow a starting character in EotE of AoR to be Force-sensitive without the "20 XP tax." Basically letting them get there a session faster than normal. But it would preclude power-gaming by going directly from Force Sensitive Exile to Force Sensitive Emergent, requiring the young Force User or the fresh Recruit to flesh out their career before expanding their horizons.

Great points, awayputurwpn. A clear character reason that's approved by the GM in a case by case basis will keep the power gamers from trying to find a way to break the system. Forcing the next spec to be from the career keeps things balanced in the long run and helps the character design stay close to the rules.

Actually, the retail value of the two free career skill ranks can be up to 20 xp (25 xp if you're giving up going Ace/Pilot as a Corellion Human) but would usually be 15 xp. That being said, if you enforce that the second tree must be from the career, at some point the character will have to pick up a spec tree. Unless they spend all of their XP on force powers and the handful of career skills they know. How soon they pick up a new spec verses more force powers might depend on if FnD powers are allowed. Anyway, at the point the player picks up the career spec they would've taxed themself the cost of the free ranks they gave up to get force powers 20 xp sooner. Saving 20 xp now to cost 30-45 xp later. All in all, I think that's ballanced.

Recruit doesnt make much sense as your sole starting career as the star wars characters are supposed to already be established in a career. You cant really be a career recruit i think the specialization was mostly meant as a way in for non soldier type careers like people from the EotE books mostly. Like a smuggler or doctor who joins up with the alliance, why would you class into the same thing youve been doing. Grab recruit which means basic military training and run with it. I wouldnt see the need for such a decision for something like a commando or spy unless you want to reflect a little extra generic training. I think starting off as a recruit would be sub par because of the lack of actual skills. Say you go commando, pick up a specialization. Until you actually spend points you are just past the point of "recruit" you are just out of basic imo.

I'm pretty sure the whole point of the recruit tree, was for EtoE characters to get into AoR. Not saying that it was called out like that, but the majority of EtoE characters don't have many (or any) combat skills... AoR focuses more heavily on combat so it placed them at a pretty heavy disadvantage.

Anyway, as to the order, I agree with others were it doesn't come first. It's like a boot camp tree for players to gain access to skills... most players (story wise), are already good at a career and use the recruit to offshoot skills that would otherwise cost a great deal to attain (out of career skills costs and all).

I don't know about that. Bounty Hunter, Hired Gun, etc... are all heavily focused on combat.

Recruit doesnt make much sense as your sole starting career as the star wars characters are supposed to already be established in a career. You cant really be a career recruit i think the specialization was mostly meant as a way in for non soldier type careers like people from the EotE books mostly. Like a smuggler or doctor who joins up with the alliance, why would you class into the same thing youve been doing. Grab recruit which means basic military training and run with it. I wouldnt see the need for such a decision for something like a commando or spy unless you want to reflect a little extra generic training. I think starting off as a recruit would be sub par because of the lack of actual skills. Say you go commando, pick up a specialization. Until you actually spend points you are just past the point of "recruit" you are just out of basic imo.

I think you might be conflating Career and Specialization. Careers = Soldier, Spy, Diplomat, Engineer, Ace, and...umm. The other one.

I totally agree that Recruit is a beautiful specialization for those wanting to jump into the Rebellion and join the fight. But there's already been lots of pointers as to how valuable the Recruit is for many types of characters, including the combat-types. Look at the talents and compare them with the specializations in Soldier, Hired Gun, or Bounty Hunter careers. The recruit can make for a skilled and well-rounded fighting PC.

Finally, Recruit has the same number of career skills as any other specialization. So there's nothing subpar about it compared to other specializations.

Edit: Commander!

I'm pretty sure that the intent of the OP was to select a career and take your 4 (6 for droid) skill picks from it and then take Recruit instead of the free in-career specialization and take your 2 (3 for droid) skill picks from it.

But honestly, in terms of disclosing ulterior motives, if I got to play as a player (not likely anytime soon), I would want to play a spy (career) with the original spec being the recruit. I think that fits Jason Bourne better than starting as a spy infiltrator. And the character's name would be Jacen Baurne and would have amnesia, basically he would have been a merc/assassin hired by a Hutt as a bodyguard and the job went sideways and his entire team go wiped out except him and he got caught in an explosion including brain damage resulting in memory loss. He wakes up in a bacta tank and the Hutt comes in and quickly deduces that the character doesn't remember his real name and uses the secret of his real identify as leverage/blackmail to keep "Jacen" working for him for cut rate pay.

In terms of recruit being narratively applicable the brain damage wiped out a lot of his old skills and he needs to relearn a lot of things from scratch.

And honestly "creative killer" is so Jason Bourne and so is having a large number of career skills so all those talents that add career skills. Jump up, pretty good strain management... it seems to fit Jacen Baurne pretty much perfectly (or as close to perfectly as a single career/spec could come to fitting Jason Bourne)

At the end of the day, no one seems to think it's really unbalanced (particularly for the Recruit), so do what your group/GM argee on and have fun with it!

I'd probably allow recruit as a starting specialization if somebody really wanted it. It doesn't appear unbalancing, and would allow somebody to simulate their brand new just off the farm character joining the military.

Hi All,

I thought you might like to see the character I would make with this house rule:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/wreuld4v46tvtus/JacenBaurneStartingSpyRecruit.pdf

take a look at the Background and notes.

There is one other area in which this isn't quite a by the book starting character, he has 2 prosthetic hands. The meta game reason is so that he doesn't have finger prints so he can't use his finger prints to identify himself.

If I got to play this character, I would give the GM some parameters for his back story and have the GM expand on that and make up all the details with the instructions to NOT TELL ME the details. Because of the amnesia my character wouldn't know his past, and his motivation is discovery:self. I want to learn little bits and pieces of my character's past gradually by roleplaying the game.

The first talent I would get is basic combat training. Assuming 20 xp for the session I'd put a rank in Brawl and get a second rank in ranged light. Most of my initial XP would go in to taking the top 3 rows of recruit and upping skills, and the right two columns of the fourth row. My second spec would be infiltrator, grit of the top row, an bee-lining for jump up (get it for 10 xp from infiltrator instead of for 20 xp from recruit) then continue to the bottom of recruit, then the infiltrator talents through the third infiltrator grit.

I'm also interesting in the slicer (towards closing the story arc of finding out who he is, I imagine he might need to break into a secure location and slice a computer on site) and sharpshooter (two copies of deadly accuracy and nothing says one of them can't be used on brawl) specializations.

dedications would go into cunning and agility (then clever solution and quick fix would emulate, Jason Bourne's lateral thinking, along the same lines as creative killer)

Yeah I know what you're thinking... all the specs are out of AoR (except slicer which is in both) so why does the char have obligation instead of duty and an EotE motivation? Basically because that's what Jason Bourne would have, his TRAINING is very military/covert-ops (i.e. AoR) but story wise he's a fringe (i.e. EotE) character.

NO, I would not allow a player to take a universal spec as a starting spec. for one reason:

Players have ways of obtaining more starting XP at character creation that could be used to purchase the universal spec that they want. The player should spend some of their starting XP to gain access to those trees. Really that simple. This make the most since to me because as the player has sacrificed higher stats or extra skills and talents to start with for an extra starting tree.

If you have Edge of the Empire you could let the player take starting obligation in addition to reducing his starting duty if you really want.

I think in the Narrative the starting spec is not supposed to represent that characters military career path otherwise everyone would start out as a Soldier:Recruit, Spy:Recruit, Diplomat:Recruit, Ace:Recruit, etc. I believe the starting spec is chosen based on what the player feels makes that character belong in the career they have chosen.

I don't know about that. Bounty Hunter, Hired Gun, etc... are all heavily focused on combat.

of the 27 current specs in EtoE, 13 of them know "some" form of combat. As you pointed out the Bounty Hunters and the Hired Guns compose 9 of those. The other 14 classes know nothing, not even how to throw a proper punch. Most groups are at least half composed of the later. Makes sense as combat isn't the primary objective of the game.

If a group/character from EtoE, opted to join the rebellion, it would be foolish to take them into war without at least knowing how to point and shoot a pistol.

Conversely, in AoR 13 of the 18 specs have some combat skill.