Hi Guys!

I am still confused, so I start a thread here where it belongs... (And please just point me into the right direction if I missed it...):

The question I have concerns getting yellow dice. As far as I understood the concept of the skills you can do two things: Train them generally or specialize to some specific point. Training can happen once level per rank, specilaisations do not have a rank, you have one and that's it. Am I right so far?

So what about the dice now? If I interpret the rulebook correctly each level of training gets me a yellow dice, specialisation gets me an additional white die if appropriate for the test. Is that so? Given the fact that yellow dice are much more powerfull and training is more versatile than specialisation this would make specialisation a waste of an advancement compared to training...

Please give me a hint...

Lucifer

But once you've trained a skill specializing in it will make you even better at it(under the right conditions.)

Yer if given the option training in a skill is better than specialising in it ([Y] > [W]) BUT as you point out you can only train a skill once per rank, but you can have as many specialisations as you want.

If you are going to build a character whose signature weapons are axe and shield (dwarf anyone?) then once that dwarf has trained in WS, then specialising in ordinary weapon group (which covers axe) is a viable option for further improving the dwarves ability with his/her axe until such a time as they reach rank 2 at which point training further in WS becomes available.

It's all about options; you might decide that advance is better spent on obtaining an extra action card rather than the specialisation, but the option is there never the less.

You are correct that Expertise (Yellow dice) are better than Fortune (White) dice and that training is more broadly applicable than specialization. However, specialization is further development on top of Training. You cannot specialize in a skill in which you are not trained, so the question of specialization vs. training is moot for a single skill since one is the prerequisite for the other. Since you can only train a skill once per rank, specialization is the only way to improve further once you have a skill trained until your rank increases. While in many cases it may make more sense to train a career skill that you are currently untrained in instead of spending an advance to gain a specialization in a skill in which you are already trained, that doesn't make all cases of spending an advance on a specialization unwise.

For example, a Rank 1 character trained in Weapon Skill gains an Expertise die to all Melee attacks. Assuming that he uses a sword (hand weapon), taking a specialization in sword will grant him an additional Fortune die to all his melee attack rolls. If the player expects to be involved in many melee combats before reaching Rank 2 and plans to continue to use a sword rather than try to locate and purchase a Great Sword, the value of the extra Fortune die from the specialization may be an advancement well spent.

Second example. The party is currently involved in a city based adventure. Interaction and negotiation with NPCs will be frequent and key to success. A player is playing a Smuggler trained in Guile and has the ability to take a specialization in deception or blather. The character could also spend an advance to train the skill Ride, which he is currently untrained in. Based on the fact that the player doesn't see any use for the Ride skill in the immediate future, he spends the advancement on a specialization that he thinks he will be able to use, possibly frequently, in the the next several game sessions.

But it's correct that you can't have a skill level higher than your rating + 1 right? So below level 1, your highest skill rating is 1. At rank 1 it's 2, and so forth correct?

conanb said:

Characters start at rank 1. Rank 1 is 0-9xp. Rank 2 is 10-19xp, and so on. So, two things:

1) You cannot train a skill more than once per rank

2) based on #1, you cannot have a skill trained more times than your rank.

Of note, a character at rank 2 that has an untrained skill, cannot train it twice to get it to "max". This is due to point #1, where a skill cannot be trained more than once per rank.

That seems odd to me. I agree with your interpretation now that you've stated it. I guess players will need to be very careful about career planning prior to changing rank.

It also means that during a career I can't really go for something... For example by choosing to be a slayer I would expect to be able to train my primary skill (this being weapons skill) to the limits, as this is basically what I do whole day. But as I only have 10 XPs per career, and I need 10 XPs to advance in rank...

Having said that it gets me back to the point where different careers are not different at all... Everyone can train whatever he/she wants basically, bringing them all to the same level. Not so good in my opinion...

btw. Thanks for the clarification on the dice

Lucifer

dvang said:

I don't take the advancement rules to mean exactly the same as you. I have taken the once per rank comment to mean that rank is simply the maximum value to which a skill can be trained.

So a rank two character could spend two advances to buy training in a skill if they had not bought any training in that skill while rank one.

Each to their own though, its just I think the rules would have specifically stated that if a training option wasn't taken during a specific rank, then that chance is lost, if that was the case. My way also invovles less book keeping! probably doesn't make a great deal of difference either way..

PrinceLucifer said:

If you're the DM, your job is to ensure that the PCs develop in a way which makes sense.

If the Commoner PC in your group wants to suddenly train in WS (which is NOT a career advance, thus it costs extra advance points), you could say that he needs to spend time being trained by another PC or NPC who IS trained in WS. Finding someone willing to spend their precious time to teach a commoner is another matter.

PrinceLucifer said:

It was the same in V2. You could only learn each skill once, so if you want from a career that didn't have Dodge to the Slayer career, you could only learn Dodge once (even if he dodged all day).

Remember they can't train whatever they want, only the skills available on the career card. Everything else costs an extra advance.

dvang said:

...unless you train it during creation, then train it again for your career - right?

NezziR said:

I consider chargen to be part of Rank 1, so if a character both acquires and trains a Skill during chargen, he can't train it again until he is Rank 2.

mac40k said:

But you are rank 2 once you have earned 10xp, so your 10th advance in your basic career does allow you to train a skill that you already trained during character generation? I cannot find anything that limits character to training a skill once per career. only by rank.

Right, the limitation is by rank and not by career.

Moreover, since the rank is gained by acumulating exp's and not by spending advances, you don't need to spend only your 10th advance, you can spend more of them in training skills a second time. There is nothing that impedes you to save your advances until you are rank 2, and then spend them all at the same time by, for example, training again your skills.

Exemple:

During your character creation you trained 4 skills (out of the 5 skills the career gives you access to). Supose this career gives you 3 advances in skills. You can for example, after spending 6 exp in advances (for this example none in skills), acumulate afterwards the exp you gain each season until you get to rank 2, in this example that would be 4 exp which you have not spend in advances. Now that you are rank 2, you still have 4 advances to spend, provided that you have enough slots, you can train again the 4 initial skills, 1 using the fixed advance, the other 3 using 3 open career advances.

NezziR said:

No.

If you are Rank 1, you can only have 1 rank in a skill. If you are Rank 2, you can only have 2 ranks in a skill and so on.

The FAQ clearifies this:

"While a PC’s initial career has some influence during the character creation process, investments made during character creation do not count toward career completion.

However, skills trained during character creation do count towards the limit of one rank of skill training per character rank ."

Yepesnopes said:

I was rather suprised to find that this is correct. I was sure Rank was based on Exp spent, as that would make more sense. A character who has gained exp, but haven't used it, isn't really any better. So it's weird to consider him of a higher rank than another character that has fewer exp but has spent as many.

But the rulebook agrees with you, so I do too

This is some impressive necromancy at work ....

But, yes. It is based on XP earned, not spent. So, yes, once a PC gains his 10th xp, he is rank 2, and thus eligible to train a second rank in any skill even though he might still be in the same career.

dvang said:

and with that it gets intresting, because rank and career advance will start shifting if you spend advances on the dedication bonus and for transition. so you can get pretty lucky and train a skill twice in one career.

i must admit, when we started playing we also played it the wrong way. we also thought specialisations would give yellow and trainings white dice…

One thing that I missed in this thread is info on the fact that you can also gain specialization more or less “for free” as part of your career completion dedication bonus. As it says in the rulebook page 37:

“If a character stays with his current career and completes all ten of the available advances from the Advancement Worksheet, he is rewarded for his diligence. First, that career’s special ability be- comes a permanent character ability. Second, the character learns a specialisation for each of that career’s key skills he trained during his time in that career. ”

That way you can get access to those nice white dice without wasting valuable XP on specializations.