One thing that I'm confused on that someone could perhaps shed some light on...

On school rank advancement, how do skill groups factor into raising your school rank. How does one get Rank 3 in the Trade skill group? Confused as to how this is attainable for PCs within the XP system.

I'm not quire sure I follow.

Taking the Yasuki Merchant School for the sake of example, your options for rank 1 are:

• Trade Skills
• Command
• Design
• Government
• Rank 1 Shuji
• * Tributaries of Trade
• All in Jest

Essentially, "Trade Skills" as an entry means any trade skill increase you buy counts full XP towards the school rank, whilst only Design out of the artisan skills counts full, others count half.

You can't buy "+1 to all trade skills" as a single purchase. You can buy one rank of each skill, individually - and that's not a totally foolish thing to do; having at least 1 rank of each skill is often useful - but each one is a separate purchase which comes under the 'group heading' of Trade Skills.

NPCs, by comparison, as written only ever have skill ranks in skill groups for simplicity; a Loyal Bushi has Martial Arts (Melee) 3, Martial Arts (Unarmed) 3, Martial Arts (Ranged) 3, and is also rank 3 in any campaign-specific subskills you choose to introduce for a campaign, like Martial Arts (Gaijin Firearms).

I think i see the question.

the rank three school requirements for a group mean that any purchase in that group count for your next rank. Basically, at this level, your school emphasizes learning these skills, even if they didnt before. so every level of that group that you buy, that xp counts full for that rank of your school.

On 7/20/2019 at 4:56 PM, Critical Missfits said:

One thing that I'm confused on that someone could perhaps shed some light on...

On school rank advancement, how do skill groups factor into raising your school rank. How does one get Rank 3 in the Trade skill group? Confused as to how this is attainable for PCs within the XP system.

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking how you buy ranks in the entire skill group? As in, what you do when the school table says "Trade skills"? That just means that each skill in the Trade group is part of the curriculum. It's short hand for 5 lines on the table saying "Commerce," "Labor," Seafaring," "Skulduggery," and "Survival."

If that wasn't your question, I fear I'm not understanding what you meant. Could you rephrase?

EDIT: The other option I'm seeing is that you're misunderstanding the tables, thinking that reaching rank X in your school requires you to have the skills/techniques in the corresponding part of the table?

I think I now understand the table and yes I think I was misunderstanding what the table was communicating.

Thanks everyone who chimed in. Very helpful 😊