Morning all,

I would love to hear from the designers on the game on this.

I noticed that there are rules for making new talents/skills, etc. There is no comments however on making new careers. Why is that I wonder?

My thought is it is for balance. If I wish to make a non-standard character, I will have to pay extra XP for the privileged of have odd skills. I think this was the design choice here because it would have been much easier for the writers to simply say "pick 8 skills as class skills, 4 of which are automatically Level 1". It would have saved a couple of pages in the book as well

What is everyone's thoughts on this?

Priest, Druid, and Wizard in the Setting-Specific Careers all include one of the magic skills, so I think even if you include new or 'weird' skills, there's still no problem also including a new Career or two giving characters access.

By going through them, I don't see anything outside of if it is a generic setting Career, to specify the possibility of combat skills changing from Ranged to Ranged (Light/Heavy) . I'll take a closer look at how else they break down by characteristic, but I think it's more or less just 8 themed skills. I haven't gotten around to writing any new ones yet, but I have my eyeballs on this system for transferring a Pirates/Age of Sail campaign into, so I'll be looking at that a little more closely after I finish all my new Archetypes.

1 hour ago, Deadlands Guy said:

There is no comments however on making new careers. Why is that I wonder?

A career is a set of 8 skills that can be improved for less XP, and 4 free ranks in those skills. You don't need any more rules than that.

The only reason you'd make specific careers for your setting is if you want to give a certain flavour, make sure certain skills are included or excluded (eg, no Astrocartography in a medieval campaign), or just to make sure PCs have some breadth to them. Otherwise, the default ones seem pretty comprehensive to me, I can't see really needing much more.

My group wanted to make more, effectively pick eight skill as class skill and then upgrade four of them to level one.

Whilst that is fairly simply, my question is more "is there a reason they just didn't say pick 8, then 4 to level one, instead of the careers list?" Is it a balance issue?

Most all of the careers have no more than 3 skills linked to the same characteristic. So, yes, there's a balance issue, but mostly falls under the role-protection rubric. Otherwise, why have the career/non-career distinction at all? It also nudges players to conform somewhat to the flavor of the setting (instead of everyone just making mage-tanks), but you could just do a away with it -- no one will stop you.

1 hour ago, Lorne said:

.... but you could just do a away with it -- no one will stop you.

I fully understand that, and fully expect it for some settings. I'm talking more theoretical, trying to understand the intent behind the scenes.

After all, If I wished to make my own careers for a setting, understanding the system design makes it easier to balance the overall game.

The Lack of a Create a Career or even a sidebar on creating your own seems to be a small problem. I remember seeing the post about the Career Skills linked to a Characteristics that also helps to keep some balance. There is something to be said about the current careers not allowing one to "Do Everything They Might Want" without having to buy Non-Career Skills.

I'll be letting my players self define careers, with a "no more than three sharing the same Characteristic" stipulation, mostly because I just know it'll lead to some of the silliest characters possible because my players are...interesting to say the least.

It is highly unlikely the designers will answer in this forum. If you want an answer from them, I recommend using the contact form on the FFG website to send them a message. They may not respond immediately, but you have a much better chance of getting an answer about design questions that way.

With the number of skills in the system there will always be compromises when choosing which are in a career. Sure you could pick 5 Combat Skills With both Initiative Skills and Discipline... but you will suck at so many actions outside of combat that it’s going to be a boring character.

They probaby chose to skip career creation advice because it’s self balancing and very simple.