What is the official word on Specializations that are duplicated? Everyone keeps saying that you shouldn't be able to buy into duplicate trees. If that is the case, then I say there shouldn't be any duplicated trees in the products. This way anyone who wanted to keep investing in a certain field could without doubling up on exactly the same talents.

Word seems to be that the duplicates are treated as already bought because they are the existing specializations from EotE, just appearing under new careers and thus simply meaning that those specializations have more than one career in which they're considered career specializations? (That is, more starting options for chargen)

They duplicate the specs because you don;t need both games. FFG is not assuming that anyone has both, which is what they need to do. So someone who wants to be a rebel pilot needs to have that option.

Right but if I am a Smuggler pilot and want to be an Ace Pilot, instead of the game pulling off my vest and putting a helmet on me and saying I'm now an Ace Pilot I would like to still be able to learn more about piloting outside of my spec. Pilot is a good example because there are not any other specialization trees that give you talents that help with spacecraft. So I feel duplicating that tree instead making two that are distinct is a mistake.

A Smuggler-Pilot is going to have a different set of career skills than an Ace-Pilot due to the careers' differing career skills, even if what a PC will actually put ranks into is obviously focused on starships/vehicles, so it's not like you're going from Smuggler Pilot to Ace Pilot because you're already a Pilot, period.

You can buy into the Driver or Gunner specializations just fine, a Smuggler just pays more XP for doing so than an Ace would because they're not career specializations for a Smuggler.

Right but if I am a Smuggler pilot and want to be an Ace Pilot, instead of the game pulling off my vest and putting a helmet on me and saying I'm now an Ace Pilot I would like to still be able to learn more about piloting outside of my spec. Pilot is a good example because there are not any other specialization trees that give you talents that help with spacecraft. So I feel duplicating that tree instead making two that are distinct is a mistake.

Fringer has some Talents that a pilot would find useful.

There you go: The Career only sets the starting career skills (with Specializations granting a layer atop that) and which three specializations are career (available at chargen for free, with the other two receiving a discount to buy into after chargen).

I think there's some nomenclature issues here, Zar. Ace Pilot and Smuggler Pilot are two entirely different trees, yes? There is no reason why you can't have both, and in fact, I see that as being incredibly likely.

I think there's some nomenclature issues here, Zar. Ace Pilot and Smuggler Pilot are two entirely different trees, yes? There is no reason why you can't have both, and in fact, I see that as being incredibly likely.

The starting careers (Ace and Smuggler) are different, but the Pilot specs are the same so you would not be able to take the spec again.

Right but if I am a Smuggler pilot and want to be an Ace Pilot, instead of the game pulling off my vest and putting a helmet on me and saying I'm now an Ace Pilot I would like to still be able to learn more about piloting outside of my spec. Pilot is a good example because there are not any other specialization trees that give you talents that help with spacecraft. So I feel duplicating that tree instead making two that are distinct is a mistake.

I'd suggest you take a look at Driver (land-based, but still has talents that help piloting) or Squad Leader (also has piloting-related talents) to say nothing of Fringer, though piloting is less of a focus with that specialization.

As for being dupes, since both books were written with being viable as stand-alone books, it makes some degree of sense to not re-invent the wheel if you don't have to. In the case of Pilot (as well as Mechanic, Scout, and Slicer), FFG didn't have to re-invent the wheel as they already had pretty solid versions to work from.

I suppose if you really want to pick nits, there's the fact that the vast majority of the talents in AoR are themselves reprints of the same talents in EotE. Again, why re-invent the wheel for a game that's intended to serve as a stand-alone if you don't need to?

I think there's some nomenclature issues here, Zar. Ace Pilot and Smuggler Pilot are two entirely different trees, yes? There is no reason why you can't have both, and in fact, I see that as being incredibly likely.

Don't think of it as buying into a tree; the rules make it clear that you're buying into a specialization .

In this case, the specialization is Pilot. And once you've bought into it, you've bought into it.

Just because two careers have the discounted price for access to it doesn't mean the specialization itself somehow exists twice.

It's interesting that, because the "meat" of the abilities are in the specs, specs get more attention that careers, even though careers are technically more important.

Per the book, a Career represents what you are and what you do. In EotE, this seems to equate (roughly) to "How do you make coin?" and in AoR, it seems to be roughly "How do you serve the Rebellion?"

A Specialization, on the other hand, is how you do it. What's your particular approach?

So, a Smuggler smuggles goods. But there are different approaches to being a smuggler: Is he a pilot (Han Solo), a dashing rogue (Lando), or a shady thief (Niles Ferrier)? Or perhaps he's a bit of two or all three of these (Lando is mostly Scoundrel in ESB, mostly Pilot in RotJ). So, take a look at Han, Lando, and Niles -- very different approaches, but all shady folk who deal with the underworld, etc.

Then we've got the Ace. Very different feel. An Ace is excellent at vehicles, whether they're starfighters, larger spaceships, or ground vehicles. Wedge Antilles is probably an Ace -- maybe just good a pilot as Han, but with a total different "feel." On the other hand, Wedge is probably not an Ace/Pilot, so...

Consider Wash, from FIREFLY. Like Han Solo, a daredevil pilot. There's no doubt that his Spec should be "Pilot," and if you have only EotE, you can make a perfectly good Wash as a Smuggler/Pilot. But if you watch the show closely, Wash has no real criminal skills, abilities, or connections (crewmates aside). What he IS isn't a Smugger, it's a guy who is a fantastic Pilot... So, Ace.

Same abilities, very different flavors.

Consider Wash, from FIREFLY. Like Han Solo, a daredevil pilot. There's no doubt that his Spec should be "Pilot," and if you have only EotE, you can make a perfectly good Wash as a Smuggler/Pilot. But if you watch the show closely, Wash has no real criminal skills, abilities, or connections (crewmates aside). What he IS isn't a Smugger, it's a guy who is a fantastic Pilot... So, Ace.

Same abilities, very different flavors.

This was exactly why one of my players rebuilt her Smuggler/Pilot into an Ace/Pilot shortly after getting the info on the Ace. She hasn't regretted the decision even though we (our group) have yet to see the Driver or Gunner trees.

The recent podcast from order 66 had the developers explain this. They wanted there to be a pilot option in AoE and they wanted a pilot option in EotE , however they did not want there to be an option where someone could create an uber slicer or an uber pilot by combining both talent trees effectively doubling up on everthing.

As the aforementioned podcast/interview stated, the talent trees are exactly the same. An Ace pilot and smuggler pilots only difference is career skills. Thus, you can't duplicate. If you want to make your character a better pilot, perhaps add Fringer to gain a few additional talents, or Gunner, so you can shoot and pilot effectively (I'm assuming, haven't seen the book yet.)

I don't know if any additional AoR trees have piloting related talents, but I'm sure there will be ones with good complementary talents. There's all sorts of things you can do to make your pilot better.

I think that from what I have read(not seen the book yet) I am expected the aoe careers to be more combat oriented. So an ace isnt going to be a better pilot than a smuggler , just different, might be able to double up skills more, to be honest that will only be an advantage in the first few adventures however the smuggler will be more useful in alot more situations. Characters that specialize on combat can end up feeling like a spare wheel in social encounters.

Just because Pilot exists in two careers (which i think is a good idea), doesn't mean you're allowed to buy it twice.

I don't know if the rules explicitly say, but I would think you're NOT allowed to buy 2 of the same specialization. A pilot is a pilot, you already have it. Similar to unranked talents. Once you buy an unranked talent, it counts as ALREADY owning it in all trees it exists in.

If you buy another tree that has that talent, you automatically have that talent. If you expand that to a greater scale, if you buy a specialization, you automatically own that specialization in all careers that it appears in.

That's how I see it anyway.

It has already been stated that the specs are identical so you cant take them twice. Another example of a duplication is that driver is going to be a scout specialization as well. An ace pilot and a smuggler pilot will be equally good at piloting (ultimately). The only real advantage is tbe lvel of starting skills.

It bothers me that not just two but FOUR specilizations are duplicated from the core rulebook and ONE from a supplement. Pilot, Mechanic, Scout, Slicer and Driver. Seeing as how the guns, armor, mods, items, prosthetics, etc. are all duplicated as well, in addition to a vast majority of the rules and several races - A LOT of the "new" material in AoR is recycled...

For us EotE owners, I say if they are not going to add more gameplay and just more "fluff" with the new books then there is no point in purchasing both EotE and AoR. I'll probably just pass on buying AoR, and I'd advise any EotE owner to do the same. It just seems like such a ripoff paying for an entire book and using less than half of it...

Suggestions for fixing this issue? Come up with new specializations that create a different flavor for each class. I don't think that a smuggler pilot would use quite the same techniques as a military trained pilot. An example of a character who had both kinds of training would be Han Solo, he was in the Imperial military and also had experience as a smuggler pilot. All that training should make him a better pilot... If this cannot be achieved with the current system then I think the current system is not flexible enough.

No. I see no reason to reinvent the wheel. Four of the nineteen specs are duplicated (not everyone will get Explore the Unknown)? That's not unreasonable. New character mechanic. New races. New talents. New Force powers. New adversaries. New ships. New world information. Plenty of stuff there to make it more than worthwhile for me. And others, I would say. I would totally recommend it.

Oh, God, I though we killed this thread. Why is it back?!?

It's a viable argument. Why should a doctor from EotE be able to get Combat Medic to focus better on their trade but a Pilot can't? Just because you feel like this is good game design doesn't mean everyone does. I think it would be good game design to make the game attractive to cross specialize between the books for all the careers.

Because a Combat Medic (short-term field care) and a Doctor (surgery) are two different things, where a Pilot is a Pilot .

It'd be akin to claiming you can wield a blaster pistol in your right hand while also wielding a blaster pistol in your right hand so you can shoot your blaster pistol while shooting your blaster pistol.

However, a pilot can be a driver to get better at what he does, as many talents work for both.

Or, to put it another way...

Under Zar's logic of "because they are under different Careers they're obviously different Specializations," then one could say that one could purchase non-ranked talents such as Armor Master (Gadgeteer and Commando) or Balance (F/S Exile and F/S Emergent) to be purchased twice and thus get the effects to stack, as they appear in multiple Specializations and are "obviously" different talents, thus ignoring the fact that the have an entry of "Ranked? No."

And if that last paragraph sounds rather ridiculous, that's because the concept is rather ridiculous.