I was wondering if anyone has done the research already, before I start my own.

What combination of trees could you use to get all the skills as career skills?

Recruit sounds like an excellent addition, due to offering so many talents that add career skills.

At some point, I'm sure there are diminishing returns, because of the escalating cost for additional trees.

There was research done on this topic and posted on this forum, but I don’t remember who did it or how long ago.

If you’re good with the search function at the top of the page, you might be able to find it and help us all out.

I don't remember either, but it was fairly recent; within the last month.

The one I remember was before AoR was on the shelves but was on the boat. He used several instances of well rounded to complete everything and was able to do it with about 140xp.

Ah, that's right. I read it in the last month, but I forgot about that archive dive I carried out. :/

ME!!! THAT WAS ME!!! I TOTALLY DID THE THING!!!

Let me see if I can dig up that post.

It's in this thread: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/108869-career-skill-clarification-please/

From the core book you must be a Colonist or Explorer for Lore. For various other skills only these specs have, you must be a Fringer, Scout, Mercenary Soldier, Scholar, and Thief.

So, from the CRB, my pick for the smallest group is: Colonist + 9 specs.

Colonist
Fringer
Scout
Mercenary Soldier
Scholar
Thief
Mechanic
Politico
Scoundrel
Marauder

Edited to show my work some.

In CRB, these are the only specs with these skills.

Fringer: Coordination
Scout: Athletics
Mercenary Soldier: Discipline
Scholar: Outer Rim
Thief: Vigilance

I hope this narrows down the work some for figuring out the shortest path with the splat books and AoR.

When you include AoR, you include Knowledge: Galactic Civil War. Only three careers have access to this skill, while no specs do. So, you limit yourself to Commander, Soldier, or Spy. The next most restrictive skill is Lore, which is only found in the Scientist and Archaeologist specs.

There are 34 skills. If you assume perfect distribution you need a career for 8 skills and 6.5 specs to cover all skills. Let’s round up to 7 specs. If all are within career, that is a minimum of 270 xp. Unfortunately, there are only up to 6 specs in a career and there will be some overlap, so that xp cost goes up.

You can use the Well Rounded talent for two additional skills for a cost savings. Archaeologist has Well Rounded for 5 xp and for 30 xp each you can get it in Medic, Politico, and Scholar. (Total cost of all four Well Rounded is 95 xp) That would be a total of 15 trained skills plus 8 WR skills, for a total of 23 known and 11 unknown.

If I was limited to only those four specs and their careers, the Soldier would be the best choice. This would grant 6 more known skills for a total of 29 known and 5 unknown. Not bad for 120 xp. (0 + 30 + 40 + 50) The trick is getting the last 5 skills. Fortunately, we can pick specs that give us the most skills from a pool of 13 skills, 5 unknown + 8 Well Rounded. As additional specs are added into the mix, different careers can be chosen. At this time, I think the following career and 7 specs would be the cheapest but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a way to go a bit cheaper.

0 – Assassin
0 – Bounty Hunter
20 – Gadgeteer
30 – Survivalist
50 – Archaeologist
60 – Medic
70 – Politico
80 – Scholar
95 – Well Rounded x 4
405 xp total

When I was picking specs, Survivalist was the last one I chose and it only gave 1 needed skill to the list, Survival. So, for 10 more xp you can swap out Survivalist for one of any number of non-career specs that give either Survival or one of the 8 Well Rounded skills. (Astrogation, Computers, Cool, Coordination, Galactic Civil War, Gunnery, Leadership, and Negotiation.)

Edit: D'oh! I forgot about the Recruit spec. I'm sure I can bring this under 400 xp.

Recruit is a Universal spec tree with career skills and has a few talents to give additional skills. With this tree I’m able to cut the cost down to 290 xp for all skills known and do it in only 5 spec trees, under the 6.5 spec tree and just over the 270 xp minimum perfect assumption I provided above.

0 - Colonist
0 - Politico
20 - Recruit
30 - Scholar
50 - Medic
60 - Thief, Mechanic, Saboteur, or Demolitionist
90 - Well Rounded x 3
40 - Basic Combat Training, Vehicle Combat Training, Well Travelled, Tactical Combat Training
290 xp total

With the Colonist book coming out soon, I wouldn't be too surprised if this number could drop. With it written up as it is, Saboteur or Demolitionist as the last tree will have an extra Well Rounded skill slot for Lightsabers if/when it comes out in F&D.

Edit: Math is hard, total is 290 xp.

Wow…

5 trees and 7 talents (290 XP) before you even start buying skills (without the out of career tax).

290/5 = 58 times you could by a skill rank with the tax instead.

Thanks for putting that into perspective.

Now, if the question was "what's the best way to max out every skill" the answer would be drastically different. I'm sure for that the sweet spot would be 3 or so trees then buying the rest with the out of career tax.

By the way, my math above did account for how much XP it would take to get to the skill talents, not just the cost of the skill talents by themselves.

Did F&D add any skills other than Lightsaber? Adding Lightsaber would put us at 35 total skills. 5 ranks in a career skill is 75 xp. Which means to get 5 ranks in all 35 skills (if all are career) is under 2,625 xp. That math doesn't include the 6 free starting ranks and any species ranks, which would knock 30 to 50 xp off the top, but is a decent starting spot to talk about a lower boundry.

To give an upward boundry, If a starting career and spec had completly same career skills, that would be 8 career skills. If you bought up the rest as non-career skills that would be 27 non career skills. Math shown below for an upper boundry.

8 career skills x 75 xp = 600

27 non-career skills x 100 xp = 2,700

Upper total = 3,300 xp

This means that the cheepest cost to buy all ranks in all skills is between 2,600 xp and 3,300 xp. Anyone feel like running the numbers to pinpoint the answer?

Edited to add: In practice, beyond your first or second extra tree, it's not worth buying trees just for knowing the skills. Your first extra tree if in career is 20xp, which means you have to buy 4 ranks in new career skills before you break even on your investment. It just gets worse from there. Thinking that the cheepest way to buy a skill is if it is a career skill is a falicy many hold over from other games. Career skills just means the ranks are cheeper. You have all the same utility with a skill if it is in your career or not.

Wow…

5 trees and 7 talents (290 XP) before you even start buying skills (without the out of career tax).

290/5 = 58 times you could by a skill rank with the tax instead.

Thanks for putting that into perspective.

With a Career skill, the progression is 5+10+15+20+25=75 to get it all the way up to five ranks. For a non-career skill, the progression is 10+15+20+25+30=100, which costs an extra 25 points to get it all the way up to five ranks.

So, with 34 skills, this would save you a total of 850xp if they were all career skills versus non-career skills. That’s a pretty significant savings, compared to the 290xp you’d be spending to get all those specializations.

Now, let’s look at what happens with XP when you buy up all those skills as high as they can go:

34 * 100 = 3400

34 * 75 + 290 = 2840

Savings = 560, or about 16.4% of the total cost. That’s not trivial, but it’s also not insignificant.

IMO, the bigger thing here is all the Talents, not the skills.

IMO, the bigger thing here is all the Talents, not the skills.

Agreed. I think taking one extra tree just for the skills is a no-brainer because it pays for itself in 4-6 ranks. If they are skills you definitely plan to increase, then it can make sense just for that alone. After that you'd really only do it for the Talents.

Now, let’s look at what happens with XP when you buy up all those skills as high as they can go:

34 * 100 = 3400

34 * 75 + 290 = 2840

Savings = 560, or about 16.4% of the total cost. That’s not trivial, but it’s also not insignificant.

While accurate, I think this data is slightly misleading, since no one can have 34 non-career skills. I think everyone starts with 10-12 from their first career & spec.

Let's say you start with 11 out of 34 skills as career, and you want to bring up all the skills to rank 5.

11*75 = 825

23*100 = 2300

Total = 3125

Spend 20 XP on another tree. Let's assume it gives you 4 new career skills.

15*75 = 1125

19*100 = 1900

Total = 3045 (3055 if tree is out of career). Save 70-80 XP.

I agree with the others, Talents are the real reason to pick up another tree. However, my first character raised maybe 2 skills for his lifetime, and I wanted to see how green the other grass was.

Don't forget that Cereans from the FaD beta get all the Knowledge skills as Career skills.

Oops. Did my math wrong. The total for everything is 275 xp. The Well Traveled talent is not needed.

As I note at the bottom of this post, there actually is a reason to do this. That's to be able to use the Colonist Unmatched Expertise Signature Ability to be able to reduce the difficulty of everything you do.

I posted this in the other thread: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/108869-career-skill-clarification-please/?p=1377125

I don't know if it's possible to cut it down any further. Might be able to shave some points off, such as if you change the Politico pick to something with 3 or 4 skills but that would be trading the 30xp Well Rounded for a non-career spec. Politico is the weak link below, only giving 3 skills due to the Well Rounded. (I haven't looked at F&D or the just released On Target to see if any of those could replace, but that would only drop the total from 275 to 255 xp.) For me, Colonist seems to be the way to go because you get 17 skills (half of the 35 needed with Lightsabers) between two trees and the two Well Rounded. With that combination, Recruit gives you 10 more skills which leaves 2 trees to get 8 skills.

Below is the listing of how I picked the skills updated with the skills picked for each step.

0 - Colonist - Charm, Deception, Knowledge (Core Worlds), Knowledge (Education), Knowledge (Lore),
Leadership, Negotiation, Streetwise
0 - Politico - Coercion + Well Rounded
20 - Recruit - Athletics, Discipline, Survival, Vigilance
30 - Scholar - Knowledge (Outer Rim), Knowledge (Underworld), Knowledge (Xenology), Perception + Well Rounded
50 - Medic - Medicine, Resilience + Well Rounded
60 - Thief, Mechanic, Saboteur, or Demolitionist - Skills listed below
90 - Well Rounded x 3 (6 skills listed below)
40 25 - Basic Combat Training, Vehicle Combat Training, Well Travelled , Tactical Combat Training - Brawl, Ranged (Light), Gunnery, Piloting (Planetary), Knowledge (Core Worlds), Knowledge (Outer Rim), Melee, Ranged (Heavy)
290 275 xp total

oops, looks like I included Well Travelled when I shouldn't have. The grand total is 275 xp.

These are the skills needed from the three Well Rounded talents and 5th tree. Which I had plotted as Thief, Mechanic, Saboteur, or Demolitionist if you don't include lightsabers. If you do include lightsabers, your only options are Demolitionist and Saboteur.

Astrogation
Computers - Demolitionist, Thief
Cool - Demolitionist
Coordination - Saboteur
Knowledge (Galactic Civil War) or whater they are calling it these days. Note: not a spec tree career skill.
Mechanics - Mechanic, Saboteur
Piloting (Space) - Mechanic
Skulduggery - Demolitionist, Thief, Mechanic, Saboteur
Stealth - Thief, Saboteur
Lightsaber

With all of this being said. If you want to know 27 of the 35 skills, a Colonist, Politico, Scholar, Recruit is totally a playable combination. A researcher who dabbles into politics to get funding for research gets swept up into the Rebellion. The backstory writes itself. Heck, it's almost Indiana Jones. The best part about this build is that since you are a Colonist you can get Unmatched Expertise Signature Ability to be able to reduce the difficulty of everything you do.

As I note at the bottom of this post, there actually is a reason to do this. That's to be able to use the Colonist Unmatched Expertise Signature Ability to be able to reduce the difficulty of everything you do.

See, thats why I laugh at the people who claim(ed) that Last Man Standing was too powerful. "Kill every minion in the encounter? It'll ruin my game!"

No, what will ruin your game is my Politio making every single roll for every single skill in the encounter a single <> at any time I so desire. THAT is true power, not making a bunch of stormtroopers fall down.

Don't forget that Cereans from the FaD beta get all the Knowledge skills as Career skills.

I've crunched some numbers and I think that Cereans will get you to all 35 skills (including Lightsabers) quicker. Someone want to check my math on this? By going Cerean and swapping Medic for Doctor I'm able to cut out a 30xp Well Rounded and the 10 xp to pick up Medic as a non-career spec. My new total is 235 xp.

0 Cerean - Knowledge (Core Worlds), Knowledge (Education), Knowledge (Lore), Knowledge (Outer Rim), Knowledge (Underworld), Knowledge (Xenology), Knowledge (Galactic Civil War)

0 - Colonist - Charm, Deception, Leadership, Negotiation, Streetwise

0 - Doctor - Cool, Medicine, Resilience

20 - Recruit - Athletics, Discipline, Survival, Vigilance

25 - Basic Combat Training, Vehicle Combat Training, Tactical Combat Training - Brawl, Ranged (Light), Gunnery, Piloting (Planetary), Melee, Ranged (Heavy)

40 - Saboteur - Coordination, Mechanics, Skuldugery, Stealth

40 - Politico - Coercion

30 - Politico - Well Rounded

50 - Scholar - Perception

30 - Scholar - Well Rounded

235 xp total

Well Rounded skills:

Astrogation

Computers

Piloting (Space)

Lightsaber

Edited to add: If you really don't care about 1 skill (such as Lightsabers), or would be willing to take the Unmatched Expertise talent Superior Reduction to work on a non-career skill, then you can swap in Archaeologist for eith Politico or Scholar. By doing this you would replace the 30 xp Well Rounded with a 5 xp Well Rounded and 10 xp Non-career spec tree tax. That would drop the total to 220 xp for 34 career skills.

That's awesome. It will cost me 195 earned XP to get there, after lifting Agility to 3. For my next character, I'm allowed to spend an extra 190 XP, to bring me in line with the rest of the group. With a +5 Obligation, I have my 195!

I wonder if my GM would allow this...

That's awesome. It will cost me 195 earned XP to get there, after lifting Agility to 3. For my next character, I'm allowed to spend an extra 190 XP, to bring me in line with the rest of the group. With a +5 Obligation, I have my 195!

I wonder if my GM would allow this...

If your GM does, let us know how it actually plays out. My guess is that when you pop UE then something will happen to cut the encounter short.

That's awesome. It will cost me 195 earned XP to get there, after lifting Agility to 3. For my next character, I'm allowed to spend an extra 190 XP, to bring me in line with the rest of the group. With a +5 Obligation, I have my 195!

I wonder if my GM would allow this...

If your GM does, let us know how it actually plays out. My guess is that when you pop UE then something will happen to cut the encounter short.

. . . . like the table being flipped.