Okay, so one of my players wants to add a potential house rule to the game. The idea, on the face, is pretty simple: instead of being limited to the Signature Abilities provided by your Career, you can attach any Signature Ability to a Talent Tree provided by a Specialization of the Ability's default Career, up to the normal limit for Signature Abilities (is there a limit? Can you get both the Signature Abilities listed for a specific Career in that Career's corresponding book?)

As a for instance, and what my player wants to do: His career is Sentinel, with the Shadow Specialization to start, but dipping heavily into Charmer (under Smuggler). Neither of the Sentinel abilities excite him, but the Smuggler abilities do (particularly the one that lets you alter dice rolls, since he's a chronically bad dice roller, and his character worships "The Lady," i.e. Lady Luck, who's name you dare not speak). Going with the Smuggler Career to start means sacrificing the free Force Rating, while going with Sentinel means foregoing the Signature Ability he really wants his character to eventually have.

So, the question I have is, would allowing the attachment of a Signature Ability from another Career, requiring an appropriate Specialization be purchased and filled in enough to actually start buying the Signature, be a horrible mistake?

Personally, I wouldn't allow something like this. However, I view the careers as more binding a concept than most do, and Sig Abilities are tied to the careers. It's a conceptual thing: in a class based game, there is always compromise. You're getting the ability to do A while giving up the ability to do B.

But you as a GM could certainly just allow an exception in this instance if you believe it would help his character develop. It shouldn't be terribly game breaking or anything.

There is a limit on signature abilities: two, as there are only two per career.

Yep. You can have one Signature Ability per career spec and you can only take each Signature Ability once. Since there are only two Signature Abilities per career, that means a total of two signature abilities total per character.

If I were going to house-rule this, I might permit a character to select a single career, starting or otherwise. So in your example, I would say sure, but then limit the PC to the 2 Smuggler signature abilities. Career paths change.

Okay. So can't mix-and-match Signatures from multiple careers, but pick the Signatures from any Career they've purchased a Specialization from. Makes sense.

As a player I actually asked the gm not to do this

im the only player without a career book (mystic) but the ability to mix careers and specs can be obscene

8 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

As a player I actually asked the gm not to do this

im the only player without a career book (mystic) but the ability to mix careers and specs can be obscene

How so, exactly?

2 hours ago, ErikModi said:

How so, exactly?

Well for example a dualist like myself taking the guardian ability to lock an NPC into a 1-1 dual - unless I'm totally outmatched I've got a great chance of winning - can't be shot by others etc etc

So, I've tinkered with this in my one F&D game I run.

What I decided was that aside from the signature abilities from your initial career, if you want to take the signature from another career, you must be substantially invested into that career (3+ specializations). By the time someone invests enough XP to do that, they've essentially swapped careers, so I don't have a problem with them developing that careers signature ability.

And iirc a combo of a hired gun and soldier ability is pretty wrong

I would have to agree but did for different reasons the three major choices that face you when selecting your career are

1/ What base skills does it have and how does its choice benefit me now, at character creation (ie free ranks) and later ( how much xp do I have to spend)

2/ What Specializations can you choose at creation (again free skill ranks) and what talent tree you can start with, and later, what other specializations you can pick up cheaper

3/ What signature ability(s) can I get later in the game. It is clear that these have a strong connection with the career it has

In this a Guardian Warden/Aggressor is very different from from a Warrior Aggressor / Warden, their career skills have a good difference, the talents in the other specializations available are very different both are strong combatants, one is more defense are the other offense. The most significant difference is whenyou get signature abilities, someone would choose a Guardian if they want to be the defender or the tank type character, absorbing blows and shrugging them off (or not),standing through onslaughts others can't, to this end they get signature abilities that enable them to defend their allies, They were born defenders, whereas the Warrior's will get more offensive signature abilities that will enable them to defeat opponents more efficiently.

It makes this choice meaningful. That being said I would see nothing wrong with allowing a player to select one career that they could get signature abilities from, this would cheapen the choice of career at the expense of greater choice for the player esp as they may have made the character prior to the book being released (although I think a rebuild would sometimes be a better path allowing a player to rebuild as a different career with the same specs they currently have might be a better solution). Allowing a player free reign to choose two signature abilities from any career is a bad idea, and letting them choose more than 2 even worse.

The strongest reason for not mixing , is that at no time in development would the two signature abilities ever be play tested together. Imagine having an executioner with the seeker sig ability for triggering criticals being able to mix this with the Guardians "Fated Duel". You would be basically allowing a player to rip up your BBEG's at a level few others could match.

The arguments against are very well reasoned and normally I would agree. But, I likely will be allowing Cross-Sigging in my game based on the fact that we started playing immediately after the Edge core came out. Therefore every character was built using only the six base careers and with no idea Signature Abilities would be an option later.

This won't have a huge effect as most of my table wants their corresponding SA. But a good case is our Colonist-Doctor/Smuggler-Scoundrel. He has no need nor interest in the Colonist SAs, but is about to buy into Gambler or Gunslinger and is ogling Unmatched Fortune. Had we known about this, he would have started as a Scoundrel and made Doctor his second spec.

I'll very likely request an additional XP expenditure, not unlike buying an out of career spec.

But, as I said, now knowing how the SAs work and given most of the career sourcebooks are out, I probably would not allow this in a fresh game.

1 hour ago, Random Bystander said:

Well for example a dualist like myself taking the guardian ability to lock an NPC into a 1-1 dual - unless I'm totally outmatched I've got a great chance of winning - can't be shot by others etc etc

But can't you do that with the Guardian career anyway?

58 minutes ago, rogue_09 said:

The arguments against are very well reasoned and normally I would agree. But, I likely will be allowing Cross-Sigging in my game based on the fact that we started playing immediately after the Edge core came out. Therefore every character was built using only the six base careers and with no idea Signature Abilities would be an option later.

This won't have a huge effect as most of my table wants their corresponding SA. But a good case is our Colonist-Doctor/Smuggler-Scoundrel. He has no need nor interest in the Colonist SAs, but is about to buy into Gambler or Gunslinger and is ogling Unmatched Fortune. Had we known about this, he would have started as a Scoundrel and made Doctor his second spec.

I'll very likely request an additional XP expenditure, not unlike buying an out of career spec.

But, as I said, now knowing how the SAs work and given most of the career sourcebooks are out, I probably would not allow this in a fresh game.

Why not just let them either rebuild as a scoundrel-doctor, they could even take the exact same talents, they would have to change career skill. even if thwt is a problem you could fix the skills at current level and now have them pay for future skill levels accordingly. Certainly these three options would be easier to implement than changing one of the basic premise for career choice and allowing a potentially game breaking free for all on signature abilities, can you just imagine having the minion (and rival slaughtering ability of a Hired Gun along with Fated Duel, otherwise known as the Ill finish this encounter off while the reet of the group go for a cigarette break.

Nah, we're deep enough into the game that rebuilding now would be way too unwieldy.

I have the advantage that none of my players are super power gamers and don't care about mixing and matching the crazy combat SAs. The one Hired Gun who's already purchased Last One Standing is already a powerhouse and the other would rather buy the Technician SAs as she cross-specced into that early on.

Except that wouldn't happen. What we're proposing is to get the Signature Ability of a Career you have a talent tree for, and ONLY that Signature. In essence, trading your ability to get the Colonist Sig for the ability to get the Smuggler Sig, or in my player's case, sacrificing the Sentinel Sig for the Smuggler Sig. No mixing and matching different Sigs from different Careers, no getting more than the two published Sigs for a given Career, none of that.

1 minute ago, ErikModi said:

Except that wouldn't happen. What we're proposing is to get the Signature Ability of a Career you have a talent tree for, and ONLY that Signature. In essence, trading your ability to get the Colonist Sig for the ability to get the Smuggler Sig, or in my player's case, sacrificing the Sentinel Sig for the Smuggler Sig. No mixing and matching different Sigs from different Careers, no getting more than the two published Sigs for a given Career, none of that.

Ah, yes, I feel I should have made that more clear. My Doctor/Smuggler will need to attach Unmatched Fortune to a properly filled out Scoundrel tree. No grabbing random SAs and tossing them onto an unrelated tree.

1 hour ago, rogue_09 said:

Nah, we're deep enough into the game that rebuilding now would be way too unwieldy.

I have the advantage that none of my players are super power gamers and don't care about mixing and matching the crazy combat SAs. The one Hired Gun who's already purchased Last One Standing is already a powerhouse and the other would rather buy the Technician SAs as she cross-specced into that early on.

How is it unwieldy If you have started as a scoundrel you got scoundrel for free and paid 30 for doctor

if you started as doctor and switched to scoundrel you paid 30 for Scoundrel - same cost

If the player paid 150xp in talents for Doctor and 50 xp for scoundrel talents, buying the same talents is exactly the same xp. So far they are exactly the same build and exactly the same xp spent. so its only the skills so you have two options here. You have them choose new free skills and let them spend exactly the same ranks in skills they still have because they were spec skills. If they had skills that were colonist only and no longer a career skill , let them switch that to a smuggler skill instead.

Or let them keep the same skills as they have (in otherwords they are exactly the same but retcon that they were a Scoundrel first and just say that from now on their career skills are X and not Y as they were before , so if they had knowledge (core worlds) at 2 , its still 2 ,but its now non career)

In effect , they have exactly the same skill ranks and talents as they have now , but they have corrected career skills and their career is Scoundrel instead of doctor how is that difficult. The PC might benefit because they have a few extra skill ranks in out of career skills that were previously career skills ( example knowledge (education, core and lore) , plus a couple of other skills maybe.

Its certainly less drastic than changing one of the basic premise of the game that career choice is important. A simple change from career Colonist to Career smuggler and nothing else except what career skills they NOW have (but still have the same ranks in skills previously bought)

Shrug. Or I just say, hey spend 10XP on top of the required 30 and we're rolling dice immediately instead of noodling over minor XP changes due to swapping out Career skills.

Like I said before, now that I know SAs exist and how much more significant one's starting Career choice is, I don't use this rule bend for my other table, nor will I for any future games.

On 7/28/2017 at 4:27 PM, rogue_09 said:

The arguments against are very well reasoned and normally I would agree. But, I likely will be allowing Cross-Sigging in my game based on the fact that we started playing immediately after the Edge core came out. Therefore every character was built using only the six base careers and with no idea Signature Abilities would be an option later.

This won't have a huge effect as most of my table wants their corresponding SA. But a good case is our Colonist-Doctor/Smuggler-Scoundrel. He has no need nor interest in the Colonist SAs, but is about to buy into Gambler or Gunslinger and is ogling Unmatched Fortune. Had we known about this, he would have started as a Scoundrel and made Doctor his second spec.

I'll very likely request an additional XP expenditure, not unlike buying an out of career spec.

But, as I said, now knowing how the SAs work and given most of the career sourcebooks are out, I probably would not allow this in a fresh game.

Why don't you just allow him to rebuild as a smuggler:scoundrel/doctor

I think the only Specialization I would allow players to take outside of their career would be the Colonist signature ability "Unmatched Expertise" as it seems like a solid universal signature ability.