I mentioned this in another thread, but I feel that it warrants a thread of its own.

Several people on this forum (myself included) are concerned that the Aptitude system discourages players from creating characters with unique skillsets. When advancing a character, you sometimes feel that you are "wasting" XP when you purchase an advance but don't have both the appropriate Aptitudes. The system is certainly better than the overly-restrictive DH1 class system, but it does penalize people for buying skills outside their character's specialty. Sure, my Feral IG Warrior could pick up some investigation skills to help out in non-combat encounters, but when rank 1 of Inquiry costs as much as a tier 2 combat talent it doesn't seem very worthwhile.

In my DH2 campaign, I let my players purchase skills for less XP if they spend a significant amount of in-game time learning that skill. This works for just about any skill given the correct circumstances, but it works especially well for Lore skills -- our psyker recently checked out a few books from the Remembrancers Guild (Space Library) while the party was searching for some clues, then spent a few hours each day for the next week or so studying those books. As a result, I let him purchase Scholastic Lore (Cryptology) for half the normal price. Note that I don't usually allow players to buy cheaper ability advances or talents this way for balance reasons.

Do you think something to this effect should be written into the DH2 core rulebook? DH1 had an Elite Advance system that used a similar rationale, but now that everyone can buy all skills/talents this was removed from the beta PDF.

Using you Feral IG Warrior as the baseline: why does this PC need investigation skills? Because no one else has them? Or because the player of the PC wants to be able to do something in non-com encounters, too?

This is not an Aptitude-based issue. If I chose to play this PC, I had a reason, and if that reason butts heads with the PC having a poor set of Aptitudes when acquiring certain skill/talents, that isn't a fault of the system, that is a player choice issue.

Do I think it should be included in the core? Should? No. Could? Yes. I can't see why not, other than page space. A sidebar would be enough. I used to allow for "discounts" like this.

Using you Feral IG Warrior as the baseline: why does this PC need investigation skills? Because no one else has them? Or because the player of the PC wants to be able to do something in non-com encounters, too?

This is not an Aptitude-based issue. If I chose to play this PC, I had a reason, and if that reason butts heads with the PC having a poor set of Aptitudes when acquiring certain skill/talents, that isn't a fault of the system, that is a player choice issue.

Do I think it should be included in the core? Should? No. Could? Yes. I can't see why not, other than page space. A sidebar would be enough. I used to allow for "discounts" like this.

It's weird how two people can look at the same situation and come to the exact opposite conclusion.

@Brother Orpheo: you mention that you used to give discounts like this to your players. What caused you to change your mind? Was the practice being exploited by players ("my assassin spent half an hour at the firing range today, so I should get a discount on my BS advance!") or do you have other reasons?

Exploitation was one reason. Others include:

• Players knowing that time spent doing something else for a XP discount meant PCs spent time "studying" or "training" when they should have been investigating and prosecuting a case
• This led to PCs being separated for odd lengths of time
• This led to some PCs doing what investigation they could, then "standing around" waiting on others to rejoin the group
• This led to the pace of the investigation- the escalation, climax, and denouement- being out-of-sync
• This led to some Players becoming disinterested in the overarching story
• All of which made it difficult for me to remain interested

In the end, I opted for a +50 additional XP cost for Skills/Talents, which allowed me to focus solely on creating the story- what the Player's did with their PC advancement was on them. It also divorced me from knowing their PCs so well that I could specifically counter their "tricks", meaning that sometimes I was caught off guard (as the "bad guy" might sometimes find him/herself), instead of orchestrating semi-omniscient NPCs, which in turn made for interesting plot twists, and also made me play smarter from my side of the screen. The focus on the story, and the story itself, were better off for having done so.

It is fine if a GM in some specific situation decides that it is appropriate that a player gets a discount, but it is not something I would like to see as a thing that consumes game time.

In the psyker's case, studying the books did not interfere with the investigation. He was heavily wounded in the next fight (7 crit damage) and needed to spend a couple days resting under the care of the Chirurgeon player.

I'd grant a character a temporary aptitude, if he acted accourdingly during a mission. He may use this aptitude only for the XP eanred during this mission though.