Between the original rules and the FAQ, the Dedication Bonus section seems a bit of a mess, so can I please confirm that the following interpretation is correct:

If a character completes a career (ie completes all 10 General Career Advances), he may spend an advance to check the Dedication Bonus box. The career’s special ability becomes a permanent ability, and the character learns a specialisation for each of the career’s key skills he trained during his time in that career.

If he does not complete the career, or does not spend the extra advance before moving to a new career, he does not receive the special ability as a permanent ability, and does not receive the key skill specialisations.

Indeed, you are correct.

Cheers, thanks for that!

UniversalHead said:

Sorry for the thread necro, but does this include skills trained during character generation or only those picked up as career advances?

No. Skills trained at character generation are not included.

The skills must be brought via as career advances.

Fresnel said:

Source for your interpretation please? From the Rulebook about the Dedication bonus: "Second, the character learns a specialisation for each of that career’s key skills he trained during his time in that career."

Is it your interpretation that skills taken during chargen are not trained in that career? Because during chargen you are specifically restricted to training skills to those listed on your starting career sheet. If they meant for skills trained in chargen to be excluded, they could have said that the Dedication bonus earns you a Specialization in each skill that you trained via spending an advance while in that career. For all other careers after your starting career this will be the case anyway, so why leave the looser wording in if not specifically to allow it to apply to skills taken at chargen? My interpretation is that you therefore do earn specializations on skills taken during chargen and that this is one of the tradeoffs for completing a randomly drawn starting career that might otherwise not interest you vs. switching out at the earliest opportunity.

mac40k said:

I'm thinking it's due to this, from the FAQ / Errata p. 3:

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 .

But on closer inspection, that might just mean that the skills trained during character creation do not contribute to the 10 advancements needed for completion. So on one hand character creation is treated like it's separate from the career, but due to the rank limitation, skills taken during char gen would most likely be penalized when you get the dedication bonus.

Lexicanum said:

The bolded part of your response is exactly what the FAQ is talking about. It has nothing to do with the Dedication bonus.

If you didn't train the skill as part of your completion, it does not count as having been trained during that career. Think of chargen as "training" to enter the career, rather than as part of finishing it.

dvang said:

I'm not so sure. When I replied to mac40k's post that's what I had in mind. But then the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that it would unfairly penalize people who took skills during character creation. For example, the Troll Slayer in my group trained 4 skills, once she finishes her career that would mean she gets no specializations!

I'm definately going with all skills trained - ie. both during creation and via advances, otherwise it becomes sort of a penalty to train skills during creation, which can't be intended.

I'm with Lexicanum and 42! on this one. I can see the argument for doing it the other way but it just doesn't feel right to me.

It appears clear to me that within the WFRP3 system character generation is seperate from 'career' advancement. Although I agree this particular issue is not specificially addressed, in the round the texts point distinctly to career skills paid with advances, not character generation points.

You can get specialisations at character generation if you use 2 or 3 creation points. As dvang said, essentailly there is a pre-career before you enter the career you begin play with. i.e. you were a 'Boatman in Training' before becoming a Boatman.

That's true, but since the skills you train in character creation DO count toward your max of one training per rank, it does seem like you'd end up being penalized for taking a lot of skills if you finish the career and take the dedication bonus. That doesn't seem right.

PCs who took trained skills at generation benefitted from the Expertise Die on those tests right from the first encounter. With 3 generation points on skills you get 2 specialisms anyway - that you start the game with.

You pay your character generation points and you take your choice .

I suppose that's true... and I suppose you could also wait for a bit and spend some advances on non-career advances until you hit rank 2, then train those skills before completing the career.

Fresnel said:

The only rule is "the character learns a specialisation for each of that career’s key skills he trained during his time in that career."

So the argument henges on whether or not skills taken during chargen are trained during his time in that career. During chargen, you first a career, then you train skills. Furthermore, you are restricted to training skills from your chosen career. They are most definitely not skills trained prior to entering that career and there is no option for taking non-career skills during chargen, which would be the case if the skills were assumed to have been learned pre-career.

Again, if you can provide a source for where the texts point distinctly to career skills paid with advances being the only skills that qualify for the dedication bonus, I'd like to see it. Otherwise, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

mac40k said:

If skills trained at character gen were really trained during the chosen 'career' than they should be recorded on the character sheet as career advances. However, this is explicitly not the case. Each PC begins the game with a 'fresh' career. The moment they are 'born' as PCs they have a character sheet with no entries in the advances section.

The whole career advancement system is a tool to track and manage PC development. As with any such roleplaying tool it has a degree of artificiality about it. My vision of WF does not have it extending to NPCs. So a boatman who has spent 15 years working the Reik has his skills, but he only gets his 'Boatman' career when he starts life as a PC - ironically the moment he stops affectively being a professional boatman...

mac40k said:

Agreed!

Fresnel said:

Ah, but advances are what PCs earn from Adventuring and here we get to the paradox of the whole "Career" system. Once the game starts, the PCs have opted (or been chosen by fate) to become Adventurers. At that point, their career becomes just a vehicle for improving their character. From a purely mechanical standpoint, advances have absolutely nothing to do with a PC's career. They can spend 15 years as a Boatman and never improve their Coordination in all that time, but spend one session (game world time undetermined, but likely less than years), where their Coordination didn't even get tested for that matter, and suddenly, they're now "trained" in Coordination. You can't rationalize that. It's just mechanically the way the game works.

Some GMs like to weave the PCs careers and career changes into their story. In some cases, this may limit PC career options for portions of the game. This is certainly not universal and there is nothing in the rules that requires this. Similarly, you could force the players to justify the Advances they want to take based on in game events, in which case our Boatman in the above example would either have to spend his advance on something other than training Coordination, or not advance at all until an in game opportunity to spend that advance presented itself. Again, nothing in the rules requires this. The rules only describe the mechanics.

The mechanics of the dedication bonus allow for specializations for any skill "trained" while in that career. "Trained" in game terms means that the box is checked on the character sheet while in that career, not that an Advance was taken. You rationalize that they don't get their career until after chargen is completed in its entirety. My interpretation doesn't require rationalization. Since career selection happens before skill training during chargen, they are already in the career when the "training" happens and the box is checked, just as they are already considered to be Rank 1 when this happens and can't check it again until they become Rank 2. Now you can certainly rationalize that the dedication bonus only applies to skills trained with Advances, just like you can require the players to justify how they spend each Advance, but neither is required by the rules.