So, I've been wondering - how debalancing would it be to make all the skills available for all careers and specs? Currently the system discourages from interesting experiments, for example a martial artist politico, since paying those extra xp for brawl ranks is just well... discouraging. And I don't think it is power-gaming etc. - it's just a skill, doesn't make the character a one-shot-killer.

Or take a look at the Marshal - lots of hard headed in the tree, but discipline is not his skill.

But perhaps I'm not noticing some obvious rationale - so what do YOU think?

I think without the career skills you lose the part of the intent of a specialization/career. If you start getting rid of that why not just go crazier with the XP awards and make up for it that way.

I have not once had any of my players complain because of the out of career cost of a skill. They are not power gamers, instead they are RPG Players that LOVE the stories and get so engrossed in them that they don't worry if it takes a session or two to reach a talent they want.

TLDR; don't do it.

They're not necessary, but without them you end up with everyone looking more the same. The Career Skills reinforce the purpose of choosing a Specialization. Not having them will encourage two bad (in my opinion) behaviors:

1. Players will try to make their character good at everything, so that they're not dependent on anyone else in the group.
2. Players will look through all the skills to find the "best" for them, which is the essence of power-gaming and tends to focus more on mechanics than on roleplay.

While there are some Talent-Skills mismatches in many trees (i.e. Stalker but no Stealth, Pressure Point but no Brawl), you are really talking about 5 XP per rank. It isn't that discouraging if that is the concept you want.

Beware unintended consequences, since this would create a huge temptation to power game for some PCs. If you want to toy with the system, you could house rule the Specializations to swap out a career skill for another to get rid of Talent-Skill mismatches. However, you'll find that this is not as easy as it seems. For example, which skill for the Marshal would you switch out for Discipline–Coercion, Knowledge (Underworld), Ranged (Light), or Vigilance? Not an easy choice since they all fit the concept well.

There are other ways to mitigate that discouraging non-career skill cost instead:

• Purchasing a second Spec with as many different career skills as possible.
• Specializations with Well-Rounded Talent.
• Species that grant free ranks in various skills at creation (Humans and Klatooinians are very versatile in this way).

"Interesting Experiments??" Some people just are tempted to play the Wookie with the 4 Willpower or the Bothan with the 4 Brawl (both start with a '1') just to be the non-conformist and go for the shock value. Some of those cross-specialization and skill experiments are just meant to be rare (hence, the difficulty in acquiring such skills). How many martial-artist Politicos do you see out there, anyways? That's probably not your attitude, anyways, but it's out there.

To be more on-target, try looking at the Careers or Specializations and think, "WHY do the get what they get?" And, "WHY don't they get this other stuff?" Most of the time, its because that's what these career people do. They typically don't do the other things.

The "Admiral" has it right (above). Typically, when a player gets (their way) and those 'choice' skills, they end up disliking their character later when they find themselves lacking in skills that they 'ditched' at character creation. I certainly have a player who lusts after whatever failed roll he made in the last gaming session. Typically, it ends up a big mess (he's in 3 specializations at the moment! 50BP's that could of went elsewhere.)

Look at it this way....why not make all of the Talents open to all characters? Using your logic....I mean...some classes pay 5pts for a Talents and others must pay 20-25pts for the same skill on their Talent Tree. Awww..... why not just make them all 5pt buys open to all careers?

Why bother? Assuming that you're starting at zero, it'll only cost you 25 points extra to get all the way to The Max. That's what - 2, 3 games worth of character points? And really, if you're going to The Max, then you'll probably want a tree to support it anyway, since that's where all the cool stuff is.

So, I've been wondering - how debalancing would it be to make all the skills available for all careers and specs? Currently the system discourages from interesting experiments, for example a martial artist politico, since paying those extra xp for brawl ranks is just well... discouraging. And I don't think it is power-gaming etc. - it's just a skill, doesn't make the character a one-shot-killer.

Or take a look at the Marshal - lots of hard headed in the tree, but discipline is not his skill.

But perhaps I'm not noticing some obvious rationale - so what do YOU think?

A couple of points to consider:

1) The xp cost of out of career skills is only +5 per rank. So 3 ranks (more then adequate for most checks) is only and extra 15 xp. Less then the cost of a second in-career spec.

2) Career skills are the balance for the force. FaD careers and specs balance their starting force rating with fewer skills.

youu Know What, I Say Go For It. In The Last Week We Have Seen Raising Stats At Any Point For Character Gen Costs, And Buying Force Rating For 20 Points. This Is By No Means As Game Breaking. "Oh No, You Saved 25 XP To Get A Skill up To 5." That's Two Or Three Talents. HardlyGame Breaking.For The Most Part, ThE Skills You're Going To Get Are The Ones that Were From Your Career Skills In The First Place. Those Are The Ones That Will Help Your concePt.Talents Will Still Give You Reasons To Buy New Specializations. I Would Still Keep The Ones You For From Your Career And Specialization For The Free Ranks. Limit The Free Ones To Those Choices. But After That, When You're Spending The Starting XP And XP In Game Let It Go. If You're Worried About Balance, Drop The Amount Of XP Received Each Session By 1/4 To 1/3, And It Will About Even Out.

Let MeKnow How It Goes.

Although the talents are the major reason why I would add a specialization, the additional career skills are still a very big reason to make that decision. Removing the extra cost for non-career skills would change the worth and value of taking a specialization.

With the rules as written, a player taking several skill levels in a non-career skill makes them unique. She's not a doctor, why is she such a good healer? How and why did the politico become a computer expert? And so on. For my own character, I've only taken three levels in two non-career skills post character generation, and they each have stories behind them.

Making characters more alike, taking away some of their specialness, removing an interesting factor for a player to make decisions with, just seems the wrong way to go for me. I'd be more in favor of adding decisions or decision factors, to make character growth more interesting to play with.

In my own life, it's obvious that I can 'pick up skills' easier in certain areas than in others. I think almost everyone could say the same. Removing this feature makes the game more bland.