I'm confused on the basics of skills. I've built a colonist doctor using one of the available character builders. Under combat skills I see them all, with dice pools, but they're all zero ranked, and not checked as 'career skills'. So, can I use them? My agility is 2, so do I have GG for all Ag based skills? Or can I only use skills that I have specifically because of my career/specialization?

If I can only use my career skills, then what do we do if I pick up a blaster? (My group is all new to the game, so I'm rebuilding my doc after our shakedown session last month and want to make sure I can shoot if necessary.)

Thanks in advance,

U

Naw, you can still use them - my Politico is still running around without anything under her blaster skill. You just roll your base attribute - in her case, two greens. SO you'll never get the chance of triumph without investing experience (unless you spend a destiny point), but you can still shoot.

In fact, you can use any skill on the sheet - it just costs you more to increase that skill than if it was in your career. Otherwise, roll away!

If you are going to be playing the character for an extended period, and if you expect to be doing a fair bit of shooting, then invest in a second specialization tree that will make a shooty skill a career skill.

I'm confused on the basics of skills. I've built a colonist doctor using one of the available character builders. Under combat skills I see them all, with dice pools, but they're all zero ranked, and not checked as 'career skills'. So, can I use them? My agility is 2, so do I have GG for all Ag based skills? Or can I only use skills that I have specifically because of my career/specialization?

If I can only use my career skills, then what do we do if I pick up a blaster? (My group is all new to the game, so I'm rebuilding my doc after our shakedown session last month and want to make sure I can shoot if necessary.)

Thanks in advance,

U

The concept of "if you're not trained in that skill, you can't use it" doesn't exist in this game. Anyone can use any skill... the only question is if that person is any good at it.

So for your colonist, you can certainly pick up a blaster and use it, but you're only rolling two Green/Ability dice, as opposed to the Hired Gun that's got a 3 Agility and a rank of Ranged (Light), giving him two Yellow/Proficiency and one Green/Ability as his base dice pool. Against an Average (two Purple) difficulty, the Hired Gun is more likely to hit and deal damage than your Colonist. But on the flip side, your Colonist can probably talk his way out of problems a lot better than the Hired Gun; both characters can make Charm checks, but the Hired Gun might be stuck rolling two Green/Ability, while you with your increased Presence of 3 and rank in the Charm skill will tend to fare much better.

That clears it up perfectly. Thanks all for the responses!

-U