Does it state anywhere that you must have the career in order to pick the advanced specialization? For example I am a Medic, if I buy a secondary class Colonist Doctor and get the prerequisites for it does that mean I can buy unmatched expertise? Or would I have had to have had started with the colonist background (career) in order to take it?

Signature Abilities belong to a career, not to a specialization. They can only be used if a character belongs to that career, and can only be attached to career specializations. For example, in Far Horizons:

Page 35: "These abilities are special, elite talents only experienced characters of the specified career have access to."

Later that same page: "Before a character can purchase a signature ability or any of its upgrades, the character must 'attach' that ability to the bottom of one of his current in-career talent trees."

So I would have needed to start as a colonist doctor then?

I don't have my books in front of me...

They do attach to the specialization tree itself, but the specialization has to belong to the career, and that career has to be one that you started in. So for instance, for a player starting as a Colonist (we'll say Marshall), when they hit the necessary bottom talents, they can proceed to attach either Insightful Revelation or Unmatched Expertise to their Marshall tree. And if they wanted, they could proceed to buy Doctor (or any other Colonist specialization) and proceed to attach the other Signature Ability to that. But they cannot attempt to get Hired Gun's Last One Standing by buying any of the Hired Gun specializations, because their career is not Hired Gun.

Talk to your GM about it. If you feel Unmatched Expertise and Doctor would be a better fit for your character, ask if it's okay to switch over. This isn't entirely an uncommon thing to do given the new releases of Core books, new specializations, and Signature Abilities, and most GMs tend to be fine with 1 or 2 swaps as long as it isn't a drastic change for the character.

So I would have needed to start as a colonist doctor then?

I don't have my books in front of me...

Yup, gotta wait for the Soldier career book

Lathrop also brings up a good point. I usually allow my players to do career swaps once, maybe twice, but especially in light of new releases or in the case of new players. It's normal for a player to get attached to a character but think "this career totally doesn't fit my original concept, even though I might have thought it did back then."

The thing was, when I built my medic I did not have access to the other books, and surprisingly the healer would have been a better choice..

Not sure anything breaks if you open it to anyone with an in-career spec and with the right nodes purchased. Will be testing this in my home game - find the RAW too restrictive and this isn't something easily exploited for getting a ton of them.

Who knows what the career book for AotE might bring to your character! Perhaps you'l be happy you stuck with it then...

Who knows what the career book for AotE might bring to your character! Perhaps you'l be happy you stuck with it then...

Hence why I figure allowing someone who's bought a spec and invested in it so deep to get a Sig Ability probably should be able to take it. It's not going to be easy to grab a bunch of these regardless.

This doesn't have anything to do with signature abilities, per se, but I had a player who wanted a Force sensitive character at the start of our campaign. He made his character a Smuggler/Scoundrel and bought FSE (one of them; can't remember which one). After about 150 XP worth of play, I noticed he hadn't bought anything in his Scoundrel tree and had just concentrated on the Force tree. So, when the FaD beta came out, I allowed him to re-spec his character as an actual Force user, since that was his original vision. His character is now a Mystic/Seer, and he's much happier with her than he was with her Smuggler career just being a place-holder. So, happy player, happy game

Another player had originally created an astromech droid, sort of on a whim. We had fun with him during Beyond the Rim (he was the Imperial plant and was fitted with an internal restraining bolt that made him do the bidding of his ISB masters), but afterwards, the player was less than thrilled with the way the droid was turning out. So, I let him create a new character with the same general XP as the group. He now has a half-Arkanian Technician/Outlaw Tech with a troubled past in Nar Shaddaa (the original owner of his astromech character) who's joined the Rebellion and is training as a starfighter pilot. Again, he's much happier with this arrangement, and we still have his droid as an NPC (though dramatically dumbed-down from its original PC status). Again, happy player, happy game.

So... while I wouldn't recommend allowing players to constantly re-spec their characters after every supplement comes out, being a little flexible and being cognizant about their concerns, especially when they're story-related and not just mechanical, will go a long way to helping them enjoy the game even more. And, of course, it might allow them to use some of those cool signature abilities that they would normally not have had available to their characters

Not sure anything breaks if you open it to anyone with an in-career spec and with the right nodes purchased. Will be testing this in my home game - find the RAW too restrictive and this isn't something easily exploited for getting a ton of them.

I doubt anything would be "broken" by a house rule for allowing a player to take a non-original career spec tree signature ability if they have a spec filled out for it. However, I would probably keep it that once you pick one then you can only get signature abilities from that career. Unless of course you want someone with access to Unmatched Expertise, Unmatched Mobility, and Last One Standing on a single character.

One neat thing to remember is that if you do max out two spec trees in the same career, you can attach a different signature ability to each tree.

Not sure anything breaks if you open it to anyone with an in-career spec and with the right nodes purchased. Will be testing this in my home game - find the RAW too restrictive and this isn't something easily exploited for getting a ton of them.

I doubt anything would be "broken" by a house rule for allowing a player to take a non-original career spec tree signature ability if they have a spec filled out for it. However, I would probably keep it that once you pick one then you can only get signature abilities from that career. Unless of course you want someone with access to Unmatched Expertise, Unmatched Mobility, and Last One Standing on a single character.

One neat thing to remember is that if you do max out two spec trees in the same career, you can attach a different signature ability to each tree.

You can????

One neat thing to remember is that if you do max out two spec trees in the same career, you can attach a different signature ability to each tree.

You can????

Totally. I don't have my books in front of me so I can't quote you the text, but it's in there. I wont have a chance to look in my books for a few days, can someone find the relevant text and post it to verify me since I'm working off memory? I'm assuming page 35 in Far Horizons would have it.

One neat thing to remember is that if you do max out two spec trees in the same career, you can attach a different signature ability to each tree.

You can????

Totally. I don't have my books in front of me so I can't quote you the text, but it's in there. I wont have a chance to look in my books for a few days, can someone find the relevant text and post it to verify me since I'm working off memory? I'm assuming page 35 in Far Horizons would have it.

Yup, one per specialization. And you don't even have to max it out, just have the appropriate nodes purchased.

Which is why it's possible (if very silly) to build a Droid PC who starts the game with a Signature Ability. Granted you have a stat-line of all 1s, no extra skills, and a somewhat odd talent selection, but you have a Signature Ability! Woo!

One neat thing to remember is that if you do max out two spec trees in the same career, you can attach a different signature ability to each tree.

You can????

Totally. I don't have my books in front of me so I can't quote you the text, but it's in there. I wont have a chance to look in my books for a few days, can someone find the relevant text and post it to verify me since I'm working off memory? I'm assuming page 35 in Far Horizons would have it.

Yup, one per specialization. And you don't even have to max it out, just have the appropriate nodes purchased.

The closest thing in Far Horizons on page 35 is: "The Colonist career has access to two signature abilities: Insightful Revelation and Unmatched Expertise." Nowhere does it say that you can only use one of them, only that you have access to both. So, if you get the proper bottom-row talents in two different in-career specs, you can attach both signature abilities.

At least, I hope this is the case, because that's the logic I used in my generator

I doubt anything would be "broken" by a house rule for allowing a player to take a non-original career spec tree signature ability if they have a spec filled out for it. However, I would probably keep it that once you pick one then you can only get signature abilities from that career. Unless of course you want someone with access to Unmatched Expertise, Unmatched Mobility, and Last One Standing on a single character.

I'm not too worried about that simply due to how much XP a character would have to have to do all that. At that point, everyone is doing awesome stuff in their specialty area.