I have been contemplating some of the complications of The space marine specialization and ranking system with regards to the contradictions that crop up when compared to canon. I completely understand the need to differentiate characters adequately but I wonder if I may have thought of a suitable alternative to the system that is currently in place while maintaining the checks and balances that are made with the system as it currently stands.
This is, of course, not a fully formed and formulated system as yet. I would, however, appreciate some feedback and perhaps alternatives to the proposed changes I will describe below.
We all understand how the system currently stands, where some talents are the province of one specialization only. The major caveat being that a player siting the right circumstances could request an elite advance to supplement the ranking system that is already established. My alternative concept is quite simple really, the specialization ranking system remains unchanged giving the specializations the same access to talents and skills that they would normally be privy to. The Deathwatch advances would likewise be unchanged but the general advances would have all the advances that relate to combat training and skills, outside of forbidden lores and psychic abilities (for obvious reasons), at one rank higher than the specialty and at a cost multiplied by 1.5 of the specialty cost for normal marines and 1.75 for Librarians due to the exclusive access to above mentioned lores and psychic abilities.
The consequences of this change is pretty dramatic but I think it makes the game and the canon a little more consistant. It also makes the specialized characters better at their particular role simply because the rank 8 abilities will still set them apart and the more efficient use of experience in those skills means that choices taken outside of the specialization would have to be made with careful thought. Obviously there are some conflicts in the implementation of this system as the abilities of swift attack for example would be available to a librarian would be available earlier due to it being a rank 1 ability for the assault specialization. Any librarian would have to carefully way the extra cost of buying that ability though because it may hurt them in the long run. In the end I suppose that the system would work itself out just by the simple virtue of economics. You might, however, have a particularly munchkin player who ends up with very little experience and very few skills...