"Useful Talents" are listed as suggestions for each career in SotB. OK, so what is suggested? Well, a lot of them include the variety of "add one career skill plus free small favor" Talents. I like these Talents. I really do, but are they really all that useful with the careers that suggest them?

• Academic suggests Former Professor despite already having all three Knowledge skills as career skills.
• Con Artist suggests Tri-Maf Contact despite already having both Melee and Skulduggery as career skills.
• Investigator suggests Years on the Force despite already having both Perception and Ranged (Light) as career skills.
• Riste suggests Corporate Drone despite already having both Knowledge (Society) and Negotiation as career skills
• Roughneck suggests Union Member despite already having all three of Athletics, Operating and Piloting as career skills.
• Soldier suggests Worlds War Vet despite already having both Ranged (Heavy) and Resilience as career skills.

Now, in each case, the Talent still provides the free small favor each session, but it still feels rather weak to lose half the benefit of the Talent.

it really depends on the context of the game. But a small favor once per session sounds pretty good for a 5xp talent to me.

On 2/16/2019 at 7:18 PM, HappyDaze said:

"Useful Talents" are listed as suggestions for each career in SotB. OK, so what is suggested? Well, a lot of them include the variety of "add one career skill plus free small favor" Talents. I like these Talents. I really do, but are they really all that useful with the careers that suggest them?

• Academic suggests Former Professor despite already having all three Knowledge skills as career skills.
• Con Artist suggests Tri-Maf Contact despite already having both Melee and Skulduggery as career skills.
• Investigator suggests Years on the Force despite already having both Perception and Ranged (Light) as career skills.
• Riste suggests Corporate Drone despite already having both Knowledge (Society) and Negotiation as career skills
• Roughneck suggests Union Member despite already having all three of Athletics, Operating and Piloting as career skills.
• Soldier suggests Worlds War Vet despite already having both Ranged (Heavy) and Resilience as career skills.

Now, in each case, the Talent still provides the free small favor each session, but it still feels rather weak to lose half the benefit of the Talent.

Partially it also has to do with the narrative/background of your PCs; I mean, unless you are (were) a incompetent and/or an anti-social mess at work, you should have some connections in your field/organization that you can call some help. Although the favour talents seems to be more than the usual connection at the work place, as you can call them up for free every session; some implication that you were an "above the crowd" with your connections.

Game Design-wise the class skills are a bonus, while the free favour is the meat of the talent I believe.; the skills are there to mostly make narrative sense why would an "outsider" have these contacts.

2 minutes ago, HelloRPG said:

Partially it also has to do with the narrative/background of your PCs; I mean, unless you are (were) a incompetent and/or an anti-social mess at work, you should have some connections in your field/organization that you can call some help. Although the favour talents seems to be more than the usual connection at the work place, as you can call them up for free every session; some implication that you were an "above the crowd" with your connections.

Game Design-wise the class skills are a bonus, while the free favour is the meat of the talent I believe.; the skills are there to mostly make narrative sense why would an "outsider" have these contacts.

Of course, it should be possible to simply rework the Careers by swapping out one of the career skills awarded by the talent for something else that fits. Then you take the talent and still get that skill. In the end, you still get an extra career skill and the free favors rather than only part of the benefit.

I don’t have the book but am I right in the assumption that the listed “Useful Talents” each offer career skills already available to the attached carrier? That is odd.