OK so it's not level based (a good thing IMHO) but by this I mean a character with a lot of experience.

I was looking at the master hunter adversary last might as something an experienced character might aspire to.

The master hunter characteristics are 3s, 4s, and maybe a 5.

I did some quick math and even a character who maxed starting XP on characteristics only would still need the Dedication talent (I think that's the one that lets you up a characteristic) 4-5 times (more?) to get the master hunter stats. That means they would have to abandon a talent tree once or twice (more?) just to be able to get there.

One problem is that is it's not very realistic to go from say bounty hunter to doctor to be a better bounty hunter.

The other problem is they lose talents that aren't temporary, getting worse at what they are getting better at.

I guess they could then go back to their specializations, but do you get back talents you lost?

I understand the master hunter is a tough adversary so it should not be easy to get to that level, but it should be logical if a character tries.

Can there be some way (at a very high cost) that dedication could become available without having to abandon the specialization that they brought to the dance? Or am I missing something?

Another thought here. Can you abandon a specialization and immediately buy it again? Or maybe buy another specialization, immediately abandon it, and buy the previous specialization again? That would be better for this scenario. But again what happens to the talents you lost when you go back to that spec?

usgrandprix said:

I know this has been covered elsewhere in the forums. Yes, you can drop specializations, and then rebuy them, but this wouldn't do you much good in the case of dedication talents, since they are "permanent" talents, which are not lost when specializations are dropped. Otherwise, you would loose the dedication talent and any bonus it provided when you dropped the specialization. This is what happens to any and all non-permanent talents when you drop a spec.

I wouldn't worry too much about what the attribute scores on the NPCs are. The rules for creating NPCs should be much less rigid than those for creating PCs, because the GM needs to have his hands free to create appropriate foes.

I guess there is a wall a character can hit when he has purchased all the talents and 3 specs (req's 300 xp/spec), and maxed out all the skills… but… I think that's such a distant goal, few players will have an issue with it.

-WJL

But is fringer -> survivalist "legit"? Used to be more focused on just surviving in the wilderness, now I put those skills to use hunting people down.

Is scoundrel -> mercenary legit? I used to be out there on my own trying to just get by with my wit, but when my enemies got tougher, so did I.

There isn't necessarily an expectation of people taking Doctor just to "fill out" their character. Besides, focusing on being a combat medic isn't really all that bad a possibility (if anything its kind of a straw-man to throw that idea out there as a "problem").

Sure, some talents are lost, but you'd be surprised at how many are actually permanent talents anyway.

Finally, realize that "master" level enemies are just better because they need to. Economy of actions by the players is usually going to win out against any single awesome opponent.

But what if I never want to change from bounty hunter/survivalist/pilot and I want to be an uber brawny, agile bounty hunter/survivalist/pilot? I can't, but the guy who wants to be a brawny, agile bounty bounty hunter/survivalist/pilot turned colonist can. In my book the purely combat/agility-focused guy should have a better chance at that. In this system they do not.

Also, I don't recall anything in the book that says specifically what happens to permanent talents from specs you abandon other than that you keep them. Do they go to a general pool such that if you go back to that spec later you can select the permanent ones (like dedication) again or does your tree refill with a smattering of premanent talents? If the latter you have talents specifically on a tree for which you do not meet the prereqs. And if it refills can you then buy a talent for which you only have the immediately previous prereq even if you don't have a full path because those temp talents are now gone?

Lots of moving parts here.

I completely get that this is theorectical in many cases and I can handle it but I have a few players that are troublesome enough about meta builds without a system that pushes them to it and this is the time to consider these things. I'm also cool with a different set of rules for adversaries but we play year-long plus campaigns. 5-10 xp a bi-weekly session and they will be sitting on 130-260 xp after a year.

The difficulty of raising characteristics already provides enough meta incentive to dump into characteristics at build. My good RP player that wants to be a good pilot at the start because he grew up on a ship and so he sinks starting XP into pilot skill and talents? He's punished later by guys that will end up being better pilots when they learn it later in life but always have 1 or 2 more agility. But neither am I going to set a range of build XP that is only for characteristics.

Bottom line: At a certain point at the height of your powers you have to start buying things that don't have anything to do with what got you there. Some players will want that storywise and should be able to but not all should have to and it seem backwards.

It's not a huge deal but now's the time to think about it. Also to be clear I think it should be hard to go from a brawn of 2 to 5. Someting should have to explain that. I think of characteristics as innate and they ain't changing much. But there should be logic behind how they change if you are going to allow it.

Maybe remove dedication from talent trees. Why can ( can , not should) I raise my brawn because I'm an excellent doctor? Maybe make dedication something you can purchase for 25 xp when you reach total xp thresholds (like 50, 100, etc.) something like is done in savage worlds?

You don't really cease to be the "best" at something just because you dropped the associated specialization is the thing. Often alot of the "big deal" talents are still permanent.

As for what happens when you drop it:

You lose all non-permanent talent. When you go back to that class, you are considered to have trained in the talents you kept (in other words, no, you can't keep cycling through the same spec to keep buying dedication at the end).

Also, its a bit metagaemey to assume that being the "best" is the result of going through every other specialization and buying all the dedication talents there.

That your goal is to have "equal" stats to a master level enemy is… well…. I don't want to sound rude with this, but I think its petty. If you have a high base skill, and a good characteristic, I see no reason not to be happy with that.

I get that you don't lose the Permanent abilities when you drop a specialization, but nothing I've read in any of the rules says they stay linked to that specialization. Based purely on what I have read, if you were to drop a specialization (by having too many), then buy back into it, the Talent tree would be empty of all the Ranked abilities and also the non-Ranked abilities if you didn't have them from another spec.

So, having Bounty Hunter -> assassin, then dropping it when going to Doctor, then dropping doctor to go back to assassin would result in all the grit and dedication Talents being unpurchased on that spec. Unless there's some ruling I've missed…

Well there are degrees for sure but I think it can be an issue in a lot of circumstances beyond just becoming nemesis level.

Say I start out as a medic: Doctor spec, int 3, medicine 2, bunch of talents. Not interested in other specializations.

5 months of gaming later I've got dedication (int 4), more skills, and a bunch more talents. I'm becoming a doctor and am getting formal training now. A chance to increase my int.

I'm not interested in putting my xp anywhere else but doctor and int and a few other skills.

The campaign has 7 more months. My int is never going up.

Other players can see maybe 2-3 characteristic increases in whatever they like. They've got roughly the same magnitude of talents (-20 for two extra specs) and skills to show for it.

My int suffers for being a better doctor than they are at anything?

Kallabecca said:

Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say but you said it better. I think the default assumption is they are "punched" again. But I think there can then be holes at a lower level that breaks a chain in a tree. In that case can you take the next level talent if you only have the previous prereq but nothing before it?

And to be clear I'm not even sure if you can take a spec again once you leave it. And if you can can you "leave" it and pay to go right back into it (taking the doctor step out of your example)?

I disagree with that idea because it basically means someone with infinite XP can eventually arrive at a point where a turbo-laser actually cannot hurt them (with no provided reason as to why). This would be done by purchasing the Resilience talent "infinite" times. Eventually a characters soak would become so high they are impervious to pretty much all damage.

I would cite the wording that "When selected talents on a specialization tree, remember that each selection on the tree may only be purchased once ." On page 65 (taking this from the errata).

At the doctor example: Eventually you're going to run out of things to put XP into. You will max out the class skills, you will hit all the talents in doctor. Where do you go then? Easily scholar could work for the character, representing the higher "academic" approach of the character. Eventaully politico may even work, representing that by being at the height of your field, you can't help but become effectively a politician, dealing more with the social aspects of the science. Or hey, any of the technician stuff (you're working on making better medical tools/making cybernetics). Or Fringer, representing the lifestyle you've had to adopt out on the Rim. Or Scoundral, and get that black market medicine connection. Or Trader, to have that legit set of connections.

Once again, its a straw man argument to say "I wanna just be a doctor" because there are so many ways to expand on that outside of just the doctor specialization.

That's my point. You have to become a bunch of different things to get a high int, brawn, whatever. Eventually you run out of scholars to become even if it makes sense to become a novice level scholar to begin with, and specs are 10-20 xp a pop I'm asking of a player.

KommissarK said:

Good point. But it should be explicit that those stay on the tree and remain when you buy the tree again.

KommissarK said:

It's just as easy to say the doctor is just one of many examples. It's a question of degrees which are going to be different for different people, but you still have to do a bunch of different specs to raise a characteristic RAW. I don't think that will bother everyone but I'm pointing it out because I can think of a lot of fixes that will not even adversely affect people who do not care about this issue. And of course I'll concede that if this is not a priority it is not a priority, but that makes it no less a valid observation. I appreciate the differing opinions.

My point though is that its legit, and almost proper for a PC to have multiple specializations though.

Take real life for example:

I am a computer programmer by trade. So in EotE terms, I have the Slicer specialization. I have a college education, which can be likened to the Scholar specialization. I have a black belt in a martial art; this system doesn't have Teras Kasi or anything, but it could be likened to any of the combat specs. I have 3 specializations, and am a reasonably well rounded person.

PCs in a game are similar. I seriously doubt the character in the doctor example spends all day sitting our in an operating theater. The point of character development is figuring out all these aspects of the characters life. And from time to time certain things will be dropped, picked up etc.

I guess I'm just trying to make a case that it is OK (to me at least) that the game pushes characters to branch out beyond their starting specialization.

KommissarK said:

It's a really good point and even probably covers a majority of character concepts. I'm just wondering if we can have both growth in new/multiple areas and "specialzation specialization" if you will have equal implications. Remember you can buy skills to show many abilities without having to get a specialization. A few ranks in ranged (light) is just going to happen even to a doctor on the Fringe.

I think there are a couple of other related issues here too like the incentive to dump xp into characteristics at character creation (I can live with this), what really happens when you drop/reenter a spec and with broken trees and prereqs (this seems messy), and why dedication lets you raise characteristics completely unrelated to your spec when it seems to be presented as the pinnacle of your spec.

Again, maybe offer Dedication for 25 xp at 50-70 point xp spent thresholds. Or place it twice on a talent tree but require one (or both) to apply only to a stat(s) that make sense for that spec. The different dedications in the same talent tree could even apply to different stats so many are covered in every one once, but only some are covered twice. You could have a 10-point specialist talent tree outside of a career that buffs abilities/skills of your other spec with dedication at the end. There are solutions.