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.

All the "classes" know some form of combat. Nothing is preventing anyone from taking ranks in the various combat skills. As to the rebellion and "non-combatants"... Not everyone needs to know how to shoot a gun to be in a rebellion. Even the Rebel Fleet needs the paper pushers, the quartermasters, the intel analysts, the engineers, etc... that may or may not know how to shoot a gun or throw a punch as they aren't the front-line fighters.

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.

All the "classes" know some form of combat. Nothing is preventing anyone from taking ranks in the various combat skills. As to the rebellion and "non-combatants"... Not everyone needs to know how to shoot a gun to be in a rebellion. Even the Rebel Fleet needs the paper pushers, the quartermasters, the intel analysts, the engineers, etc... that may or may not know how to shoot a gun or throw a punch as they aren't the front-line fighters.

In the Military even the paper pushers learn to shoot a weapon.

That is expressly what Basic Training is for, to turn civilians into Soldiers (Marines, Sailors, and Airmen)

I think it even says not required but encouraged under the Recruit Spec.

NO, I would not allow a player to take a universal spec as a starting spec.

...

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.

Even if the Recruit specialization was granted as your starting specialization with a caveat, as I suggested earlier? Like so:

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.

I think it's fair and balanced, and can play very heavily to a character's flavor and backstory. Yes, playing it by RAW can make sense, but that doesn't mean it's the only way that "makes sense."

Players have ways of obtaining more starting XP at character creation that could be used to purchase the universal spec that they want.

...

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.

This is actually against the rules, per page 342 of the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook. So...YMMV, but I wouldn't alter the RAW here. I'm much more comfortable offering a Universal Specialization as a career specialization, with caveats, than I am with a character taking on more and more starting XP past the max allowable by RAW. The reason for this is that the XP expenditures with my house rule suggestion will eventually even out, whenever the PC chooses to purchases his second specialization. And it's not like it's really even unbalanced in the first place. It's just that "all will be as it should be," and the PC will essentially look like a RAW-created character by that point in time (with the exception of, perhaps, 2 skill ranks--although this is up to the PC in question).

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.

This isn't necessarily so. as you say, "I believe the starting spec is chosen based on what the player feels makes that character belong in the career they have chosen." Giving them the Recruit specialization out of the gate is just another option that can serve to make them feel like they belong in the career they've 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.

All the "classes" know some form of combat. Nothing is preventing anyone from taking ranks in the various combat skills. As to the rebellion and "non-combatants"... Not everyone needs to know how to shoot a gun to be in a rebellion. Even the Rebel Fleet needs the paper pushers, the quartermasters, the intel analysts, the engineers, etc... that may or may not know how to shoot a gun or throw a punch as they aren't the front-line fighters.

In the Military even the paper pushers learn to shoot a weapon.

That is expressly what Basic Training is for, to turn civilians into Soldiers (Marines, Sailors, and Airmen)

I think it even says not required but encouraged under the Recruit Spec.

And the paper pushers can pick up the skill. They just pay a little more in XP to get it. Also, being shown how to shoot in basic doesn't mean you have the skill as a "Class" skill or even have a rank in it. It just means that in the narrative of your background you've been shown how to shoot.

Its not too hard to do.

Pick a human or whatever, pick a career as their background, pick skills, dump some xp into 3 x stats at 3

Then with the remaining 20xp, buy the Recruit package and away you go.

Its not too hard to do.

Pick a human or whatever, pick a career as their background, pick skills, dump some xp into 3 x stats at 3

Then with the remaining 20xp, buy the Recruit package and away you go.

In contrast to someone taking 10 more obligation or 10 less starting duty and getting 4x attributes at 3. And really all the building advice says that maximum longterm benefit comes from dumping ALL of your starting xp into attributes.

This (see awayptyrwpn's posts) is essentially a conversation about a small short term benefit (both game mechanical and narrative) without affecting the long term game mechanical benefit. That's how I see the conversation anyway. Different people posting in this thread might be having different conversations.

Guess its how you run your games, as a GM I 'might' let someone have +10xp for Obligation, but don't expect it to be 'free' and the long term consequences of that will cause some serious problems. My groups tend to be 5-6 and sometimes up to 7-8 people, if everyone was getting that extra +10 then its pretty much a base 70-80% chance of triggering.

On a double (11, 22, 33 etc), the big hammer is coming down right now... last session it did with the group having accumulated some nasty Obligation in course of their adventuring and annoying people. Those annoyed people turned up and did what they do when you've got problems...

Half their transport is now completely gutted due to a Baradium charge.

Hope you like that +1 stat, I'd recommend you stick it in brawn!

This is a little tangential but I've run 3 sessions in this campaign and just picked certain PC'S obligations to deal with. 5 of my 7 PC'S have had their obligations come up, and it's arguable that a 6th one has too [but this PC didn't due anything to deal with it, it just had negative story consequences], I just worked them together into a cohesive story. Two-ish PC'S haven't gotten their center stage moment yet and the next session will fix that for one of them. Rolling to trigger obligations isn't necessarily to use them effectively.

@awayputurwpn

The point of this thread (correct me if Im wrong) was to find an alternative to the RAW to allow a player to start with an universal spec. ANY method of starting with a Universal Spec as your free career spec is against RAW.

Basically I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post was. My method like yours(page 100) is against RAW.

RAW: If a player wants to start with a Universal Spec then they spend some of their starting XP to get it.

My Twist: Give them some extra starting XP specifically to purchase the Universal tree through more obligation and "if you want" (which is against RAW) lower duty. As long as this XP isn't spent on raising characteristics nothing is broken by doing this.

YMMV but you kinda come off as a jerk in your post (and you are probably more than likely not a jerk IDK)

@awayputurwpn

The point of this thread (correct me if Im wrong) was to find an alternative to the RAW to allow a player to start with an universal spec. ANY method of starting with a Universal Spec as your free career spec is against RAW.

Basically I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post was. My method like yours(page 100) is against RAW.

RAW: If a player wants to start with a Universal Spec then they spend some of their starting XP to get it.

My Twist: Give them some extra starting XP specifically to purchase the Universal tree through more obligation and "if you want" (which is against RAW) lower duty. As long as this XP isn't spent on raising characteristics nothing is broken by doing this.

YMMV but you kinda come off as a jerk in your post (and you are probably more than likely not a jerk IDK)

The point I was trying to make was that 10 post character creation XP is not enough to buy recruit. And 10 XP would already have been taken to raise the fourth Stat to a 3.

Not starting with 4 attributes at 3 would introduce a long term handicap which would not balance out over time.

Also, in my specific case, spy recruit is also more narratively appropriate to the character concept (amnesia needing to relearn things) and having vigilance as a career skill granted by the starting spec is more appropriate than the bonus skills granted by infiltrator.

Two episodes back of the order 66 podcast they talked about mixing obligation duty and morality. I think that having all three (particularly morality which is not a drawback for a non force sensitive and could be ignored) for 20 extra [after character creation] XP is more abusable than swapping a starting spec. Especially if you follow awaypturwpn's house rule of requiring the second spec to be from your career.

Is that a clearer more friendly statement contrasting the two proposed houserules

The point of this thread (correct me if Im wrong) was to find an alternative to the RAW to allow a player to start with an universal spec. ANY method of starting with a Universal Spec as your free career spec is against RAW.

Basically I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post was. My method like yours(page 100) is against RAW.

RAW: If a player wants to start with a Universal Spec then they spend some of their starting XP to get it.

My Twist: Give them some extra starting XP specifically to purchase the Universal tree through more obligation and "if you want" (which is against RAW) lower duty. As long as this XP isn't spent on raising characteristics nothing is broken by doing this.

Okay, I understand. From your other post, it sounded as if you were trying to support a RAW-friendly way of going about things. I apologize for misunderstanding. If I sounded jerk-ish, maybe it was just because I was answering your post with the assumption that you were trying to be a proponent for the RAW-way-of-doing-things, and thereby was addressing a problem that wasn't actually a problem

I really am a lovely person.

As to the point of the thread, originally I think it was just a question about whether a universal specialization could be taken as your starting specialization during character creation. The discussion evolved from there. I guess EliasWindrider would be able to inform us as to the actual intent but it sounds as if he's already taken a non-RAW suggestion and run with it, so the orignal purpose of the thread could very well be fulfilled!

I really am a lovely person.

I 100% believe you. I just re read my post sorry I was pretty aggressive defending my original post I kinda feel like a jerk.

Your solution may not be the same as mine; yours is a whole lot less "messy." I would not hesitate to allow a player at my table to use it. I would just prefer mine cause I like using the obligation and duty mechanics where ever I can. (maybe too much but that's another topic all together...)

@EliasWindrider

Whoa. I apologize profusely. I had no intent of turning your topic into something ugly. You are in NO WAY AT FAULT here!

You are being a little too hard on yourself though.....

Anyway I fumbled my two cents.

Sorry for the mess....