Rules as written suggest there is no reason to buy specializations for career skills.

The character can purchase fortune dies for one of the primary characteristics listed on his career card. This is a permanent addition to that characteristic's dice pool and should be noted in the white square next to the characteristic. Fortune dice are cumulative. If a character already has a fortune die in a characteristic from a previous advance, selecting this advance again provides a second die to the characteristic pool.

E.g. Rank 1 character has a career skill (that is based on their career's primary attributes) they want to improve, but they've already max'ed out on expertise die.

Q1: Why would they spend 1 advance on a specialization when they could spend it on an additional fortune die for their primary characteristic?

Q2: It would getting a fortune die for the ability is much more valuable. Is there a scenario where spending the advance on specialization has a greater mechanical benefit than adding a fortune die to the primary characteristic?

Q3: Is there a limit on the number of fortune dice that can be added to a characteristic?

Q4: Is there a limit on the number of specialization dice that can be added to a skill?

Q5: If it's true that specializations on career skills provide materially less benefit than fortune dice added to characteristics, under what circumstances do people find themselves using them (other than at character creation and career completion)?

murph said:

You're right in terms of you'd always want to spend advances on fortune dice first as, mechanically, this is far superior to a skill specialisation. However, all careers are limited to the number of fortune dice you can buy while in that career (there's only a very small number that can't spend advances on fortune dice).

IMHO as you progress towards completing a career the advances you spend are more rounding out your character in that career and will (in general) give you less bang for your buck than advances spent at the career start. However, skill specialisation, still has it's place - both mechanically and narratively (making characters distinct and unique).

As your questions relate purely to the mechanics of the system, I'll give you an example around why, mechanically, you may purchase skill specialisation. If you are playing a Troll Slayer, for example, and you wanted to be the best you can be with your axe in combat: your career gives you 1 skill advance and 1 fortune advance, plus the skill general career advance. To pursue this, your order of advances would probably be:

1) Weapon Skill training (if it hasn't already been purchased this rank).

2) Strength fortune point.

3) Weapon Skill - Hand Weapons speciality.

This would use up your 2 available skill advances and your 1 available fortune advance. That's all you can do for this career. Then, after career completion, you might enter the Giant Slayer career - which has the same advances as before (in terms of skill and fortune). So, you might spend advances:

1) 2nd Weapon Skill training.

2) 2nd Strength fortune point.

3) Weapon Skill - Parry with Hand Weapon speciality.

Narratively, I see specialisations as rounding out a character and also making them more unique - at the start of the Troll Slayer career, the above example character will use hand weapons, great weapons, etc all to the same effect. Later on in life, as the character is well into the Giant Slayer career, he will concentrate on using hand weapons only - as this is his "specialisation". Yes, mechanically, they cost the same as training and fortune dice for much less return - but I still like them in a role-playing narrative sense.

To address your actual questions:

Q1 - see above.

Q2 - I can't think of a situation when adding a specialisation instead of a fortune die (if it was available as an advance) would be more beneficial.

Q3 - I'm not aware of a limit to the number of fortune dice added to characteristics - other than the limit of the number of fortune advances available in the current career.

Q4 - You can't pick a specialisation more than once - at least that's how I've read the rules. I've had a quick look and I couldn't find a specific entry saying that you can't stack specialisations - but I see them as a one-off thing.

Q5 - See example above.

Trenloe said:

The issue I'm seeing - and perhaps seeing incorrectly - is that you can add a fortune die to a characteristic with an open career advance. I think my mistake was thinking that I could do this with any open career advance.

If I'm re-reading this correctly, I'm only allowed to buy fortune dice if my career's list of advances says I can. So, for example, my Wild Elf Mystic Garron is allowed 3 Fortune die advances, but the somewhat-less-favored-by-fortune Troll Slayer Kuri is only allowed 1 Fortune die advance.

Missed that - probably because I hadn't played any sessions where people were advancing. Arrgh! I need to game!

Thanks.

Q1: Why would they spend 1 advance on a specialization when they could spend it on an additional fortune die for their primary characteristic?

a) You can buy both and get multiple fortune dice
b) You are limited in the number of fortune dice you can buy for a characteristic, and which characteristics.

Q2: It would getting a fortune die for the ability is much more valuable. Is there a scenario where spending the advance on specialization has a greater mechanical benefit than adding a fortune die to the primary characteristic?

Yes, getting the fortune on the characteristic is mechanically more valuable. See my answer 1b above, though.

Q3: Is there a limit on the number of fortune dice that can be added to a characteristic?

Nothing specifically in the rules, although many GMs on the board here limit it like training ... 1 per rank per characteristic, to a max of 3.

Q4: Is there a limit on the number of specialization dice that can be added to a skill?

No, you just cannot select the same specialization twice. A PC could specialize in both Swords and Axes, for example, which are both WS specializations. As another example, they could specialize in Longbows and also specialize in "trick shooting". Thus, a PC attempting a trick shot with a Longbow would get to add 2 fortune dice.

Q5: If it's true that specializations on career skills provide materially less benefit than fortune dice added to characteristics, under what circumstances do people find themselves using them (other than at character creation and career completion)?

When you've used up all your available fortune die advances on your career, or you have reached your limit (see answer to q3) on the characteristic and want to make a skill even better, or when the skill you want to improve is not associated with one of your two career characteristics

>>>>Q3: Is there a limit on the number of fortune dice that can be added to a characteristic?

>>>>>>>Nothing specifically in the rules, although many GMs on the board here limit it like training ... 1 per rank per characteristic, to a max of 3.>>>

This is how I do it in my campaign. Anything else get's stupidly broken too fast. Chances of success in most actions are already extremely high, and you don't need to overdo it.

I think we get longer life out of a campaign with 'more well-rounded' characters than with epic level characters.

jh

Emirikol said:

Agreed. I use this in my games as well.

dvang said:

I agree too. Kinda penalises the rare careers that have 3 fortune increases. However there aren't that many, I can only find 3 in the Player's Guide: Seer, Mystic and Commoner.

Mind you, perhaps that's a good thing - a Seer 2 advances into their career could have 4 fortune dice on either Fellowship or Intelligence!