This is lengthy and I may have not described things very well so feel free to ask for an explanation, please.

I have two things I'm trying to implement in character generation both related to some Talents from Terrinoth regarding unlocking new career skills.

First, I want to have "Lifestyles" as part of a background that can be expanded during generation or play. A character could have a background as a Nomad, Woodlander, Highlander, Street Urchin, Nobility, etc which unlocks some career skills. At least one of these could be selected during character generation for free. For example, Nomad could give Riding and Survival as career skills. Further Lifestyles could also be unlocked with XP expenditure during character generation (the PC's background includes being a Nomad that moved to the city so he picks up Street Urchin) or even during play, similar to the Adventurer talent in Terrinoth. Some of these could have prerequisites or be of a higher Tier (example: Noble).

I wanted to stay near the default of 8 career skills and 4 skill ranks unlocked for free during character generation. So my first intention was to give a typical Lifestyle 2 career skills with the player choosing one skill rank from them then allow a player to also choose a Career (as usual), but reducing their career skills and skill ranks to 6 and 3 respectively. Thus, they aren't getting any less or more skills or ranks then the default examples in Terrinoth. (8 and 4)

This got me thinking though. It would be nice to have my Lifestyles and Careers described as if they were Talents for simplicity sake and to add some goals. For example, some "Tier 1" careers (5 xp after character generation, opens up 2 career skills)) might include basic careers of Apprentice Mage, Militia, Hunter, and Thug. Tier 2 careers may have a prerequisite in T1 careers and include more advanced careers of Wizard, Man-at-Arms, Scout, and Guild Thief (10 xp after character generation, opens up 4 career skills, perhaps some added benefits of gear and narrative advantages). Tier 3 may have a prerequisite in T2 careers and include elite careers of Archmage, Knight, Ranger, and Guildmaster Thief (15 xp after character generation, opens up 6 career skills, some bonus gear, and narrative social bonuses or penalties). These of course would not be required to obtain, but could create goals and some in-game action. The PC thief would need to have purchased T1 Thug and T2 Guild Thief, then take over or form a guild in-game, before he could purchase T3 Guildmaster Thief with in-game title, benefits, etc.

Lifestyles could also be of varying Tiers with Noble being Tier 3 and Commoner Tier 1, for example. If a player wants to make his character a duke's son, it will cost some extra XP during character generation while unlocking some career skills and gear? that a nobleman should have.

Starting PC's would be granted 4 total bonus Tiers of Lifestyles and Careers during character generation. They must select at least one Career and one Lifestyle. Plus, these bonus Careers and Lifestyles come with the added benefit during character generation (only) of providing skill ranks equal to half the number of career skills given (similar to default careers of 8 career skills and picking 4 ranks from them). Thus, a PC might start with Woodlander Lifestyle (T1), Hunter Career (T1), and Scout Career (T2) while aspiring to be a master ranger someday. Those would unlock 8 career skills (perhaps less, since some would overlap*) and give 4 skill ranks. These selections could suggest the PC had grown up in a woodland village as a hunter before setting off to become a scout for the nearby baron's army, for example.

Thoughts? This is purely scribbled notes on a pad currently and I don't want to go down this rabbit hole any further if it's going to cause large problems and thus be a waste of time.

*When typing this, I noted the issue of purchasing higher Tier careers wasting XP since they will have some of the same skills of lower prerequisite careers (Hunter provides Survival as a career skill and Scout does too). Perhaps reduce the XP cost of a Career or Lifestyle by 2 XP per skill you've already unlocked?

It’s a great idea, probably a few kinks to iron out, but nothing drastic. I’m a setting I have been working on I had considered splitting the career process up; 4 career Skills from career, then 2 more from place of origin, with the final 2 skills coming from your social standing. With the additional equipment introduced in Terrinoth I have even considered having specific gear coming from those choices too

I hadn't considered dividing my "Lifestyle" into place and social standing. Another rabbit hole to explore.

The tricky part with it that you need a solid setting to base it off. My ideas started from the Wheel of Time which has enough diversity and information to make it work. But if you are coming up with your own setting then it really can increase the workload to get it done.

The only tricky part is what happens when a PC picks a career which has one or more skills from the lifestyle/region/standing.

For the conversion I'm working on, I did something similar where each character has a Region of Origin and a career. I decided I wanted a bit more of the skill list to be career skills (not using any "unlock X as a career skill" talents), so I gave each career 9 skills and each region 6 skills. I addressed my opening by having PCs add the two lists they pick together, eliminate any overlap, pick 10 to become career skills, and then pick 4 to get 1 rank in. Maybe I just got lucky, but it was easier than I thought to arrange the Region skills in such a way that any region/career combo still left the PC (at minimum) choosing between 2 skills to add to their career list.

Example: Explorer from the woodland/nature Region (aggressive overlap).

Explorer: Athletics, Brawl, Coordination, Perception, Ranged (Heavy), Sailing, Stealth, Survival, Worldwise (Knowledge) (9 skills)

Region: Healing, Perception, Ranged (Heavy), Riding, Stealth, and Survival (6 skills)

Combined: Athletics, Brawl, Coordination, Healing, Perception, Ranged (Heavy), Riding, Sailing, Stealth, Survival, Worldwise (11 skills)

Chosen: Athletics, Brawl, Coordination, Healing, Perception, Ranged (Heavy), Riding, Stealth, Survival, Worldwise (10 skills)

Ranked: Athletics, Brawl, Coordination, Healing 1, Perception 1, Ranged (Heavy), Riding, Stealth, Survival 1, Worldwise 1 (10 skills, 4 ranks)