Why do players receive a yellow die each time they train in a skill but only a white when they specialize in it? I feel as a GM, that they should be swapped, and players should receive yellow die for specializations, well because, the yellow die is special and has rare outcomes. When training a skill a player should get better and receive small bonuses, like the white, they shouldn't get the special rare yellow die for just being trained. Do any other game masters feel this way?

Yes I do.

However, in the long run this means your PC's will probably be overpowered in a small area and wish they were better at their skill in general.

Expertise dice gives too many good stuffs.

Characteristic dice as the same resolution than fortune dice but with better stats.

In our game, we houseruled specialization gives blue characteristic dice you can modify with stance.

In my games I transpose the dice.

Fortune shows a knack for the general skill set (ie: athletics - you are a good athlete.)

Expertise shows dedication and training to a specific end (ie: athletics - specialisation Pole vault (or whatever) - you have practised long and hard to pole vault, and although you are a good all round athlete, you have trained yourself to be a top notch pole vaulter.)

I am still not sure that this really works at it effects the results on the cards, but everything is promising at the moment. Also see Sunatets House Rules in the House Rules Forum for a discussion on a varient of this.

Alp

Problem with swapping the white and yellow dice is that it messes the action card balance and thus makes the game different than was intended by the developers. I employ different method to hinder the character development. In order to train skills second or third time, a character must have earned a promotion to higher status. For example if character enters to intermediate career he has done something that allows him to train his skills further or if soldier has been promoted to sergeant etc. Also higher skills can be accessed by hiring a skilled teacher, which could be expensive. Or maybe killing a wargor in epic fashion inspires such advancement.

This approach ensures that characters who take no risks and/or stay in lowly basic careers really cannot rise to super skilled levels. They only may take minor specialisations to their skills.

Hell no. The training already represents a good level of training. Specialistation gives diminishing returns on focusing one one area of a skill. I love the fact that a specilaist is only slightly better than a generalist as it keeps the balance between the best & the worst in a party tighter.

Reversing the dice would need a complete rework of the action cards & you would need to address the fact that you can take more skill dice as you increase in rank but only one specialisation - though this may be as simple as reversing the allowances.

I agree with Pickles and Thug. (Which is an odd statement that makes me think I'm part of some twisted Beatrix Potter story.)

In my opinion this aspect of the system works as is and doesn't need changing, for the reasons they've stated. However, I also believe the system is very flexible. If folks want to try this, they should be encouraged to do so with the understanding that it may cause some unexpected results unless the action cards are re-worked.

Swapping the dice for specialisation and training will result in fewer yellow dice in play because specialisations are used less often than general skills. Fewer yellow dice means fewer Sigmar's comets and that reduces the range of result you can get. Fewer comets means fewer criticals, fewer special effects, fewer portents and omens (assuming you use them for this).

Specialization gives blue dice in my game : same effects than Fortune white dice, but better statistics.

I agree with you all. Swapping the dice does create a different results pool! My arguement is simply that if you train as a scholar (for example) you should not apply the training (expertise) dice across the board (ie: so Dr Stephen Hawkings what is the valency of a carbon atom? Yellow dice .... maybe not (but probably given the mans intelect) .... white fortune dice for a good grounding and understanding of the subject ... definately! so Dr Hawkings could you explain the theory of relativity ... Definately an expertise (yellow) dice)

Training to me represents an all round knack in a particular field. As an athlete you can turn your hand to tennis or football or swimming or riding and hence you get a bonus fortune dice. Specialisation (for me) represents the three hours a day that you spend practicing, and training, in that given field. As you can all appreciate a world class tennis player spends hours each day training at tennis, so they are bloody good at it (expertise dice), but ask them to compete in a downhill skiing competition, they will be mediocre at best - they may get a small bonus for being a compitent athlete, but - for me - that is as far as it goes!

What this house rule does is change the dynamics of the game mechanics. Specialisation becomes more profound, whilst training give you an all round ability. In essence you need the specialisation to excel, but lots of practice will still give you an advantage.

In some of the previous forum topics it has been noted that charcters appear to be too 'high fantasy' or 'overpowered', but this will limit some of this.

I hope this makes sense, and I am sure you can all see what the intention is. I do appreciate that the cards change, but the rewards for specilisation become more ... for want of a better word ... Special, with the reciprical being a good starting / grounding in a given field.

This may enhance the game for some ... or destroy it for others .... but the intention is good.

I do like willmanx' idea of using yellow expertise dice for training and blue (instead of white fortune) for specialisation, but will need to consider this some more.

Alp

So to explain a bit....

My players demanded a specialization that makes you feel really better than a trained dude. They argue that white dice gives you only 1/2 chances of getting a good thing, 1/3 to get a success...

beside that I noted you benefit from that dice on a limited way of using that skill (except for weapons for sure...). Moreover a fortune dice on a primary characteristic or a yellow dice on a trained skill cost the same 1 advance than specialization... These two other advancements are surely used more often.

So they asked for a yellow dice... fair enough... You get 1 more yellow dice your rank should authorize you... But it seemed to much for me because of the reroll and the comet. So came the Blue dice which gives the same solutions as a white dice, but with better stats.

good gaming

If I can get blue Characteristic dice for 1 advance as a specialization, why would I ever save up for an Characteristic increase or even spend an advance on a Fortune die on a Characteristic? I agree that there are better things to spend an advance on than a specialization; however, in addition to specializations taken during chargen, the dedication bonus potentially provides multiple specializations for the cost of a single advance. The extra Fortune die is plenty of bonus for these virtually free specializations. A PC rolling an extra Fortune die is still more likely to succeed or generate a boon than a person who is only trained. They won't be phenomenally better, but they're not intended to be.

In summary, spend advances on other things and take specializations with the dedication bonus.

willmanx said:

What do you think about:

- specialisation - 1 yellow die

- training - 1 white die

I simply swapped bonus given by specializations and training.

Cheers

Isn't the issue really the multiple expertise dice for added training?

I haven't played enough to see this effect but would be tempted to shift "added training" to "a fortune die", rather than letting rank 2 characters end up with 2 expertise dice all the time on their ballistics etc.

If there was something letting more powerful foes add challenge dice all the time that would lessen my concern as it would balance out. One variant might be letting Expertise dice be spent to add challenge dice to a PC's pool as well as Expertise dice to NPC's (same way aggression can be misfortune for PC or fortune for NPC) - perhaps that's a feature added to uber monsters or nemesis types.

Rob

valvorik said:

I think it is. Expertise dice are among the best dice in the game. 1 XP for such a die is really very cheap, and an extra blue die can cost you 4 or 5 XP or more. And skills are pretty broad. I'd like to see more specialisation.

What I'm currently leaning towards is:

When you train a skill, you have to choose a specialisation for that skill. If at character creation you get 3 skills + 1 specialisation, for example, you train 3 skills, choose a specialisation for each of those skills, and then get a bonus specialisation for one of those skills. When you train a skill a second time, you choose another specialisation for it.

In use: training in a skill gets you a fortune die for each level of training. A relevant specialisation gets you an expertise die on top of that.

I think this way you'll see more specialisation in characters. When you train a skill, you're not immediately an expert in every application of that skill, you're just pretty decent at everything, and an expert at only one thing. You won't get an overdose of specialisation dice, but you will get some. Specialisation will really matter, but each character will have quite a number of specialisations, which distinguishes him from other characters with those same skills.

By the rules you can only train a skill once per rank, so that limits how quickly a PC can get multiple Expertise dice. OTOH, a PC can take multiple specializations and more than one can apply to a given situation. So if you are house ruling swapping the dice, are you also house ruling the associated rules?

In your system, I see very little reason to pursue skill training, since as you note a white die adds very little. Meanwhile, if characters get more bang for their XP buck out of specializations, I'd expect to see a lot of narrow character concepts. They will get extremely good, possibly very quickly, at certain things, but will be average at best in just about everything else. The existing system sets up PCs to be more generalists. It's worth it to spend XPs on skill training since as you say Expertise dice are some of the best and skills are broadly applicable, which encourages diversification of their abilities. Again, since specializations can be earned for free as part of the Dedication bonus, these extra Fortune dice are just added benefits for completing a career. I'd never advocate for spending XP on a specialization however.

mac40k said:

Can't you train a skill at character creation and then train it again as advance during your first career? So you can start with level 2 training in a skill. That's quite a lot.

I'm afraid I forgot how you can acquire specialisations. Training costs only 1 XP right? So specialisation should cost less than that.

mac40k said:

But it adds very little to quite a lot. Specialization adds to very little, so it should add a lot to it. Otherwise what's the point of specialization?

Also, I believe my proposal included getting a specialization for free every time you train a skill, so there's more than enough incentive there to train skills.

mac40k said:

But that's the point: they don't get more bang out of it.

And what you call a narrow character concept, I call a more focused character concept. When you've trained Education, you're not immediately a general scholar with expert knowledge of everything from history to classical languages to philosophy to who knows what; you're only a historian, or only a philosopher. There's nothing narrow about that; it's more interesting, in fact. And nothing prevents him from still being a very diverse character. He can still be a tough, two-fisted philosopher who's good in a fight. But he's not Generic Knowledge Guy anymore.

mac40k said:

How does it encourage diversification of their abilities exactly? It doesn't. Not more than my proposal does. In my proposal, you can still only train Education once. But instead of that one level of training turning you into Mr Knowitall, it turns you into Mr Historian (who also knows a bit about everything else, but not quite as much). Or it turns you into Mr Polearm instead of Mr Every-Weapon-In-The-Book.

It makes you more interesting, gives you something that's really You. But your second career skill is still going to be in a different skill. So diversification is still there. But it also keeps the party more diverse, instead of everybody ending up with the same skills and there not being anything that distinguishes how a Scribe or a Wizard uses his Education.

mac40k said:

So specializations are rare, have little effect, and have narrow application. Why even bother with them at all?

mcv said:

You can't train a skill a second time until Rank 2, so you can't have a starting character with 2 Expertise dice.

Why bother with them at all? They are a further refinement of your general skill and when taken with the Dedication bonus provide you an extra little bump practically for free. Why not take free bonuses?

You clearly think specialization should be better than training. I think you are getting hung up on the word. If it was called something else I wonder if you would feel the same?

Well personally i think so many yellow dices are making alot more dmg in combat than it should be.For example 2 yellow comets are already very strong and you get them after 11XP or so.Basically you cant improve you defense with skills and you can improve your attack with best attacking dice with only 1XP.

As well many things will be out of hands for GMs.Take 2h NPCs for example:Thunderous Blow+Reckless Cleave is like 4-5 crits in 2 rounds with just a little luck and boom,PC dead.Not to say that with even single Melee attack there will be loads more comets,boons so you can even with Melee atack do 2-3 crits with single hit.point is that you get one expertise with one XP and you cant take anything that good for defense,even with more XP points.

So i think idea with specialization for expertise dice and weapon skill for fortune dice is great,otherwise it will be hell of a mess

Leon

uuh, my head hurts.

specializations vs Training....why mess with a perfect and balanced rule?

just because some players wants so, or feel that it don`t match with their views?

Its your job as a GM to put your foot down when they make unreasonable demands. And in this case it is I think, adding blue dice as specialization? nonsense I say.

But hey whatever works for you. some like vanilla ice on their pizza.

I wonder if GMs finds this training vs specialization something that needs to be adressed, or that is players (those annoying creatures at the other end of the GM screen) who thinks so?

Good gaming from a GM with much experience about shceming players.

Mal Reynolds said:

Well Mal, IMO it's too powerfull, and not so perfectly balanced actually.

But thats just my personal opinion (like You said, some people like icecream on their pizza ).

I also went a step further than guys over here.

So instead just replacing expertise dice with fortune dice I allowed the specialisations to be taken up to 3 times exactly like training in skills (but not more than your skill rank), and replace white fortune dice (training) with yellow expertice dice (specialisation) when making a roll concerning specialised area.

This allows players to still be very capable and powerfull in a given field.

For example:

A player with WS trained 3 times and Swords specialisation taken 2 times will add 2 expertise and 1 fortune die when using sword, but when he uses other weapons he is less experienced with, he can only use 3 fortune.

I just like it this way.

Sunatet said:

WOAH! my head spins. My perfectly balanced rule, crumbles to dust. What world are we living in, allowing such gross abuse of the rules? Cruelty cruelty I demand justice, the rules have been violated .

just kidding, hmm nice ruling actually. Not to overly powerful, it has its balance. better than the blue dice solution I think. butiwillNEVERuseitanyway.

Good gaming
ps: i like nougat on my pizza.